pj    •  11        3  /"*  '11  -1 

ttnckland  uiihlan 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


INCLUDING  FINNIGIN 

INCLUDING  YOU  AND  ME 

SUNSHINE  AND  AWKWARDNESS 

EACH,  $1.00 


A    SAMPLE    CASE 
OF   HUMOR 


BY 

STRICKLAND  GILLILAN 

Author  of  "Including  Finnigin,"  etc. 


CHICAGO 

FORBES  AND  COMPANY 
1919 


6* 


COPYRIGHT,     1919,     BY 
FORBES  AND  COMPANY 


PREFACE 

Now  here  comes  another  lecture.  I  began 
giving  it  because  I  had  to  have  other  lectures 
besides  " Sunshine  and  Awkwardness."  I  had 
always,  as  a  mere  human,  been  deeply  inter- 
ested in  humor,  just  as  I  had  always  been  in- 
terested in  food  and  drink.  It  seemed  to  me 
to  be  one  of  the  chief  necessities  of  life.  I 
noticed  others  loved  it,  and  believed  if  I  were 
to  talk  a  wee  bit  about  humor,  show  some  of 
the  different  kinds  there  are,  lead  the  public 
inside  and  show  it  how  the  wheels  go  round, 
said  public  might  be  further  interested.  I 
did  this  before  an  audience,  scared  to  death 
and  with  a  bunch  of  notes  on  the  table  beside 
the  glass  of  water,  and  the  audience  liked  it. 
This  gave  me  courage  and  I  let  the  thing  grow 
and  grow  until  it  is  the  size  of  what  follows. 

My  hope  for  this  book,  from  the  viewpoint 
5 

M183576 


PREFACE 

of  results,  is  that  it  may  increase  the  public's 
appreciation  of  humor  by  increasing  its  powers 
of  observation  in  that  direction — sort  of  an 
every-man-his-own-humorist  proposition,  you 
see.  There  is  as  much  fun  in  the  world  for 
you  as  there  is  for  me.  All  you  need  is  eyes 
to  see  it,  a  heart  of  kindly  appreciation,  and  a 
mind  sufficiently  devoid  of  rheumatism  to 
enable  it  now  and  then  to  jump  out  of  the  rut 
and  kick  up  its  supple  heels.  It  is,  in  other 
words,  in  the  hope  of  enabling  people  to  have 
a  lot  of  cheap  and  harmless  fun,  from  the  eye- 
brows up,  that  I  have  prepared  this  lecture 
and  put  it  into  book  form.  It  is  a  new  sort  of 
text-book  on  Humor. 

STRICKLAND  GILLILAN. 


6 


A  SAMPLE  CASE 
OF  HUMOR 


Ladies  and  Gentlemen — My  friends,  and  those 
who  are  better  acquainted  with  me : — 

It  sometimes  happens  that  when  a  speaker 
goes  before  an  audience — and  I  hope  to  good- 
ness that  this  time  the  speaker  may  go  before 
the  audience  does — I  say  it  sometimes  happens 
that  when  a  speaker  arises  in  the  presence  of 
an  audience  before  which  he  has  previously 
appeared  in  this  or  some  other  time  on  earth, 
he  finds  himself  in  the  unfortunate  fix  of  the 
Missouri  farmer  who  was  driving  to  town 
through  those  old-time  Missouri  roads — that 
is,  he  went  nearly  through  them,  in  places — 

7 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

with  a  wagon-load  of  apples.  I  don't  know 
what  kind  of  apples  they  were.  They  weren't 
Ben  Davis — they  were  apples  of  some  kind. 
But  any  way,  as  he  was  driving  along  try- 
ing to  guide  his  steaming  team  through  the 
least-worst  places  in  this  elongated  and  ser- 
pentine mire  that  was  jocosely  called  a  road,  a 
board  came  loose  in  the  bottom  of  the  wagon- 
bed,  and  the  apples  began  rolling  out,  one  at 
a  time,  two  at  a  time,  peck  at  a  time,  till  pretty 
soon  there  wasn't  an  apple  left.  The  old  man, 
busy  with  the  team,  knew  nothing  of  what  was 
going  on  back  of  him.  Finally  they  got  into 
the  very  worst  mudhole  yet.  It  was  a  bog  of 
blue  clay,  sticky  and  bottomless.  The  horses 
sank  further  and  further,  till  they  got  in  clear 
up  to  their — alimentary  canals.  They  strug- 
gled and  bit  each  other  and  frothed  at  the 
mouth  and  squealed  and  laid  back  their  ears, 
but  to  no  purpose.  Then  the  boss  "laid  on  the 
bud"  awhile  to  see  if  that  form  of  moral  sua- 
sion would  help,  but  it  didn't.  Finally  he 

8 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

turned  to  see  what  he  had  better  do  with  his 
apples.  And  when  he  noted  the  emptiness  of 
the  wagon-bed  he  cried  out  in  despair  "Stuck, 
by  heck,  and  nothin'  to  unload!" 

I  say  that  sometimes  happens  to  a  speaker, 
but  it  hasn't  happened  tonight.  Cheer  upl 
If  anybody  is  stuck  it  is  whoever  brought  me 
here.  I  am  going  to  unload  steadily  for  an 
hour  and  a  half  or  so. 

When  I  find  myself  thus  in  the  presence  of 
friendly  folks,  I  feel  far  less  like  standing  up 
on  my  hind  feet  and  lecturing  at  you  as  if  I 
were  some  superior  being  imported  at  great 
expense  from  somewhere  to  impart  wisdom  to 
you,  than  I  feel  like  doing  what  the  Hebrew 
gentleman  wanted  to  do  one  day.  He  had 
gone  along  the  road  to  a  place  where  the  rail- 
road and  the  other  road  crossed  each  other  at 
grade.  He  saw  symptoms  of  an  automobile 
lying  about.  He  saw  some  inert  human  forms 
draped  and  festooned  over  the  landscape.  He 
noted  one  form  less  inert  and  more  nearly  in- 

9 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

tact  than  the  others,  and  he  kneeled  beside  it, 
intelligently  asking: 

"Wass  dere  a  excident?" 

The  man  inquired  of  was  too  nearly  dead  to 
give  the  sort  of  answer  that  sort  of  fool  ques- 
tion so  richly  deserves,  so  he  patiently  whis- 
pered, "Yes." 

"Dit  der  logomotif  hit  der  automopeel?" 

Another  whispered,  "Yes." 

"Dit  der  enchiner  plow  his  vissle?" 

"No." 

"Has  der  claim  achent  been  along  yet?" 

"No." 

"Let  me  lay  down  peside  you!" 

A  MANUFACTURER 

I  come  to  you  tonight  as  a  manufacturer. 
A  manufacturer — as  anybody  knows  who 
knows  enough  to  go  in  out  of  a  heavy  rain — is 
one  who  collects  and  selects  raw  materials  and 
fashions  them  into  a  finished  product  for  the 
use  or  pleasure  of  his  fellow-mortals.  The 

10 


A  MANUFACTURER 

raw  materials  I  collect,  from  which  I  select, 
and  incidentally  largely  and  enthusiastically 
reject,  are  the  little  bits  of  quaintness  and 
oddity  and  human  inconsistency  I  see  and 
hear  and  imagine  as  I  wander  about  the  coun- 
try, and  the  finished  product  is  the  humor  of 
commerce — the  kind  you  buy  in  newspapers, 
magazines  and  other  periodicals  and  on  the 
platform.  All  I  give  you  is  of  my  own  manu- 
facture— not  always  manufactured  from  my 
own  raw  material.  Some  of  it  is  not.  I  use 
only  the  stories  and  incidents  that  best  illus- 
trate the  kinds  of  humor  I  mention  in  a  sort 
of  attempt  at  classification  of  humor.  You 
have  heard  some  if  not  all  of  my  stories  before, 
for  I  was  a  manufacturer  long  before  I  became 
a  peddler.  And  there  never  yet  was  an  author 
who  did  not  consciously  or  unconsciously  use 
material  that  was  old.  Mark  Twain  made  a 
world-wide  reputation  as  an  original  humorist 
by  writing  "The  Jumping  Frog  of  Calaveras 
County,"  and  afterward  found  the  story  in  all 

11 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

its  essentials  in  the  Ancient  Greek.  Kipling, 
the  greatest  author  of  modern  times,  frankly 
confessed  that  he  took  material  wherever  it 
came  to  hand. 

Much  of  what  I  tell  you,  is  true.  For  truth 
is  not  only  stranger,  but  funnier,  than  fiction. 

ORIGIN  OF  HUMOR 

I  have  a  theory  about  humor.  Now  any 
person  who  takes  up  many  minutes  of  other 
people's  time  telling  about  a  theory  of  his  own, 
ought  to  be  shot  at  sunrise.  So  I  shan't  be 
tedious  about  this:  I  believe  that  when  the 
great  Creator  of  this  universe  had  reached  the 
point  in  creation  at  which  you  or  I  or  any  other 
finite  being  would  have  thought  the  whole 
thing  perfect  and  past  possibility  of  improve- 
ment— when  He  had  put  the  ripple  on  the 
bosom  of  the  stream  which  had  been  sufficiently 
beautiful  before  it  rippled;  when  He  had  set 
the  glorious  rose  bloom  on  the  lacy  thorn  which 
had  been  marvelously  lovely  before  the  bloom 

12 


ORIGIN  OF  HUMOR 

came;  and  when  He  had  even  gone  so  far  as 
to  put  a  song  into  the  richly  burnished  throat 
of  the  bird,  which  had  been  endlessly  attractive 
before  the  song  burst  forth — when  He  had 
even  done  these  three  astounding  things  that 
nobody  except  a  master  poet,  artist  and  musi- 
cian would  have  thought  of — even  then  He  was 
not  wholly  satisfied.  He  saw  imperfections. 
In  His  infinite  wisdom  He  knew  what  was 
wrong.  In  His  infinite  power  He  could 
remedy  the  defect.  In  His  infinite  goodness 
He  did  so.  The  thing  lacking  was  humor. 
He  knew  as  well  then  as  you  and  I  have  found 
out  since  that  there  would  be  a  lot  of  boiled- 
dinner  days  and  wash-days  and  blue  Mondays 
when  everything  would  go  at  sixes  and  sevens, 
and  that  some  artificial  joy  was  needed  to  tide 
over  until  real  happiness  returned.  And  so 
He  went  about  over  His  work,  and  every- 
where that  it  would  not  bring  about  a  discord 
or  inharmony  or  curdle  things  hopelessly,  He 
chucked  in  a  little  fun.  Then  He  glanced 

13 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

over  His  work  with  a  different  look  in  His  eye, 
and  He  said,  "It  is  good."  (You  may  find 
part  of  that  in  Genesis,  but  mighty  little  of  it!) 
Then  He  went  on,  for  He  is  a  progressive  Cre- 
ator ;  and  He  gave  you  and  me  and  other  spe- 
cial pets  of  His  eyes  to  see,  ears  to  hear  and 
hearts  to  feel  and  enjoy  this  blessing. 

And  He  went  still  further,  for  He  is  an  in- 
finitely progressive  personality,  and  He  made 
a  lot  of  human  jokes  who  take  themselves  seri- 
ously. And  they  were  the  very  funniest  things 
of  all.  They  were  doomed  to  go  through  life 
with  solemn  faces,  producing  and  distributing 
large  quantities  of  joy  for  others,  without 
knowing  they  did  it.  They  remind  me  of  a 
bunch  of  sheep  in  a  brier-patch.  As  they  go 
along  sedately  nipping  the  grass,  they  leave 
tufts  of  their  wool  attached  to  the  briers. 
They  don't  know  they  leave  it,  but  the  birds  do 
and  are  grateful  for  this  fine  nest-building  ma- 
terial. .  .  .  Among  the  other  kinds  of  humor 

14 


THE  HUMORLESS  PERSON 

I  am  going  to  talk  about,  I  am  going  to  give 
you  some  samples  from  this  sort  of  person. 

THE  HUMORLESS  PERSON 

I  have  a  friend  who  has  about  as  much  sense 
of  humor  as  the  wooden  Indian  of  commerce. 
Some  time  ago  he  made  a  trip  through  the 
Mammoth  Cave  of  Kentucky.  Like  all  such 
literal-minded  people  he  did  his  sight-seeing 
very  thoroughly.  He  didn't  miss  a  single 
ramification  in  that  great  crack  in  the  face  of 
Mother  Nature.  And  when  he  had  completed 
the  job  and  had  emerged,  dirty  and  weary,  I 
asked  him  what  he  thought  of  the  Mammoth 
Cave. 

"Well,"  said  he,  "taking  it  as  a  hole,  it  is  all 
right." 

People  go  about  the  country  putting  up  signs 
that  have  no  sense  in  them,  and  not  realizing 
how  ridiculous  they  are.  In  Chicago,  on 
Adams  Street,  just  before  you  cross  the  bridge 

15 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

to  go  into  the  Union  Station,  there  was  once 
a  sign  that  I  literally  guyed  out  of  the  town: 
"Petticoats — Entrance  on  Market  Street." 

Now  that  wasn't  true  of  those  skirts  at  all. 
I  stopped  and  asked,  one  day.  I  found  that 
people  who  bought  those  skirts  could  get  into 
them  at  home,  if  the  skirts  were  large  enough ; 
and  didn't  have  to  go  to  Market  Street  to 
dress,  at  all.  And  I  inquired  into  the  na- 
tionality of  the  man  who  put  up  that  sign — 
laboriously  engraving  it  on  brass.  He  was  a 
thoroughbred  American. 

At  Quincy,  111.,  on  the  Young  Men's  Chris- 
tian Association  building,  in  stone  letters  a 
foot  high  and  cut  three  inches  deep  in  hard, 
red  granite,  one  sees  (or  could  the  last  time  I 
looked)  "Men's  Y.  M,  C.  A."  That  word 
"men's"  took  probably  a  week  to  engrave. 
And  the  man  who  wrote  that  sign,  as  well  as 
the  man  who  dug  the  words  out  of  the  flinty 
stone,  was  an  American. 

Now  and  again  we  find  a  person  connected 
16 


THE  HUMORLESS  PERSON 

with  the  educational  system  of  our  country 
who  is  devoid  of  the  saving  sense  of  humor. 
This  is  criminal  and  should  be  prevented  by 
statute  accompanied  with  severe  penalty. 
Any  person  connected  with  the  mental  and 
moral  training  of  our  young  and  rising  genera- 
tion ought  to  be  examined  as  carefully,  by 
competent  inspectors,  as  to  his  sense  of  humor, 
as  he  is  examined  to  ascertain  his  scholarship 
and  moral  character.  If  the  young  people  of 
this  country  are  not  sympathetically  under- 
stood in  their  proclivities  for  humor  and 
pranks  they  cannot  be  handled  intelligently  or 
successfully.  No  ivory-topped  citizen  is  equal 
to  the  task.  Too  many  of  our  so-called  edu- 
cators are  scheduled  correctly  under  the  speci- 
fications of  the  new  beatitude  I  once  saw  writ- 
ten in  blue  pencil  on  the  inner  wall  of  the 
editorial  sanctum  of  the  Los  Angeles  Herald: 

"Blessed  is  he  who  taketh  himself  seriously, 
for  he  shall  create  much  amusement." 

And  he  who  creates  unintentional  amuse- 
17 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

ment  never  holds  the  respect  of  those  who  laugh 
at  him.  To  be  laughed  at  is  death,  to  be 
laughed  with  is  life. 

I  ran  into  one  of  these  human  educational 
tragedies  in  a  western  city  a  few  years  ago. 
If  you  come  to  me  privately  and  promise  to 
be  nice  about  it,  I  will  name  the  town.  But 
I  shan't  do  it  in  public.  It  is  such  a  nice  town 
every  other  way.  I  had  talked  to  the  morning 
assembly  of  students  in  the  wonderful  high 
school  edifice  .they  have  in  that  city.  I  had 
made  a  hit,  of  course.  No,  I  am  not  immodest. 
Anybody  can  make  a  hit  talking  to  students 
at  morning  assembly.  The  speech  may  be 
poor  stuff,  but  it  is  keeping  the  students  from 
work,  which  they  dread  even  worse  than  a  poor 
speech.  So  in  all  modesty  I  say  I  was  making 
a  big  hit,  for  I  talked  a  good  while. 

After  I  was  through,  I  was  going  down  one 
of  the  corridors  of  the  building,  when  I  was 
accosted  by  one  of  the  faculty — he  wore  a  van 
dyke  beard,  which  is  always  impressive,  and  a 

18 


THE  HUMORLESS  PERSON 

wide  ribbon  to  his  pince-nez,  which  is  irresisti- 
ble. He  accosted  me  and  said: 

"Do  you  know,  I  am  much  int 'rested  in 
humoh !"  Just  like  that !  I  knew  I  was  in  for 
it.  Anybody  who  makes  three  syllables  of  in- 
terested and  leaves  the  r  off  of  humor  is  to  be 
approached  more  in  sorrow  than  in  anger. 
He  is  devoid.  So  I  answered  him  gently, 
with  soothing  nothings. 

He  went  on,  "Do  you  know,  a  friend  of  mine 
said  something  very  humorous  and  original  the 
other  day,  and  I  wanted  to  tell  you  about  it." 

"Yes?"  I  breathed. 

"Yes,  I  spoke  to  him  over  the  telephone, 
you  know,  and  he  said,  'Good  morning! 
You  are  looking  well' — just  as  if  he  could 
see  me,  you  know !  And  it  was  at  the  'phone !" 

I  felt  very  badly  indeed  about  this.  I  knew 
that  if  a  man  could  laugh  at  a  wheeze  so  an- 
cient as  that,  he  would  have  to  be  answered  in 
some  ancient  way.  So  fumbling  panickily 
around  among  the  shelves  of  memory  I  jerked 

19 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

out  the  oldest  and  moldiest  one  I  could  find, 
and  answered : 

"Ha,  ha!  The  first  time  I  heard  that  one, 
I  kicked  the  side  out  of  my  cradle." 

"O!"  he  cried  in  delight,  "that  int'rests  me 
also.  Is  it  possible  your  sense  of  humoh  de- 
veloped so  young!" 

Can  you  beat  it?     I  did! 

Sometimes  (thank  heaven  the  cases  are  be- 
coming rarer)  we  find  a  minister  of  the  gospel 
who  is  devoid  of  a  saving  sense  of  humor,  and 
when  such  a  case  exists  tragedy  is  always 
either  present  or  impending.  While  a  min- 
ister has  as  good  right  as  any  other  human  be- 
ing to  the  use  of  humor  where  and  when  it  can 
further  his  work,  he  is  not  supposed  to  be  for- 
ever jesting.  Yet  he  ought  by  all  means  to 
have  enough  of  a  sense  of  humor  so  that  he  may 
avoid  jesting  when  he  shouldn't  jest.  He 
should  have  it  for  defense  if  not  for  aggression. 
I  know  a  minister  who  has  all  the  bubbling 
sense  of  humor  that  one  finds  in  a  whetstone  or 

20 


THE  .HUMORLESS  PERSON 

a  cake  of  soap.  And  once  he  sprung  a  giddy 
jest  at  the  very  moment  when  he  wished  to  be 
most  solemnly  impressive.  You  have  heard 
the  story.  It  illustrates  perfectly  the  point  I 
wish  to  make.  One  morning  this  minister  was 
in  his  pulpit — It  was  one  of  those  perfect  Sab- 
bath mornings.  You  would  have  known  it 
was  Sunday  if  you  hadn't  seen  a  calendar  for 
six  years.  The  sun  was  shining  just  warm 
enough  and  not  too  warm.  The  middle  panels 
of  the  windows  were  atilt  to  let  in  the  fresh 
May  breeze.  Spring's  tenderest  green  was  on 
the  trees.  The  light  filtered  in  through  the 
vari-colored  memorials,  giving  weird  and  visi- 
ble glory  to  everything  within.  The  birds 
were  singing  softly  outside.  The  Sabbath 
hush  had  fallen  awhile  over  the  congregation. 
The  organ  voluntary  had  been  played ;  the  cash 
involuntary  had  been  taken  away  from  them; 
the  minister  had  read  the  scripture  lesson  and 
made  his  announcements,  there  had  been 
prayer  and  a  hymn,  the  weekly  notices  were 

21 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

read,  and  then  the  minister  announced  his  text. 
I  don't  remember  what  the  text  was — I  have 
bad  luck  remembering  texts.  But  I  know  very 
well  what  he  was  talking  about — the  infinite 
care  the  Creator  had  given  to  things  that  seem 
to  us  such  trifles  as  to  be  almost  negligible. 
He  said: 

"The  same  hand  that  made  the  mighty  moun- 
tains that  lift  their  snow-clad  and  unsullied 
sierras  into  the  overarching  blue  of  the  sky, 
made  the  tiniest  grain  of  sand  that  lies  at  the 
range's  base;  the  same  hand  that  made  the 
marvelous  ocean  that  thunders  ceaselessly  and 
restlessly  across  the  golden  sands,  made  the 
tiniest  drop  of  dew  that  glistens  like  a  first- 
water  gem  upon  every  grass-blade  at  the  dawn- 
ing. And  the  hand  that  made  me,  (throwing 
out  his  chest  like  a  pouter-pigeon),  made  a 
daisy!" 

He  probably  still  wonders  why  that  congre- 
gation laughed,  but  I  see  you  know. 


22 


DISGUISED  COMEDIES 

DISGUISED  COMEDIES 

And  sometimes  we  have  experiences  that  are 
tragedies  to  us  while  they  are  going  on,  but 
that  afterward  turn  out  to  have  been  comedies 
all  the  time,  in  a  thin  but  deceptive  disguise. 

Providence  writes  the  play,  assigns  us  to  our 
part,  rehearses  us  for  it,  puts  us  through  the 
performance,  sets  the  scenery  and  stage-man- 
ages the  whole  thing,  but  never  lets  us  see 
the  script  of  any  except  our  own  part.  Some- 
times we  are  such  grotesque  figures  in  the  play 
that  we  resent  it.  We  think  we  are  playing 
tragedy ;  but  when  the  years  have  gone  by  and 
we  can  see  it  all  in  perspective  without  the  fore- 
shortening effect  of  self-interest  and  our  own 
feelings,  we  sense  the  comedy  and  understand. 
So  many  of  us  are  but  character  comedians 
when  we  think  we  are  tragedians ! 

Take  the  average  every-day  tragedy  that 
comes  into  your  life.  You  say,  "Well,  I'd  like 
to  sob  over  that  for  a  week  or  two.  But  I'm 

23 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

so  busy  right  now  with  other  things.  I'll  put 
this  away  in  mothballs  and  when  I  get  time 
I'll  do  it  justice."  You  put  it  away  wrapped 
carefully  in  jewelers'  cotton  and  some  day 
when  you  think  you  have  time  for  a  good  bawl- 
fest,  you  unwrap  it — and  burst  out  laughing! 
Somebody  had  switched  the  label  on  you;  and 
it  had  been  a  comedy  all  the  while. 

You  see,  it  had  got  on  your  feelings  before, 
and  now  it  was  off  from  them.  Watching  a 
dentist  when  you  sit  down  in  his  chair,  you  see 
him  lay  out  a  row  of  little  jiggers  that  look  like 
stunted  crochet-needles.  You  shut  your  eyes 
and  open  your  mouth  and  he  rams  a  telegraph 
pole  into  the  midst  of  the  sorest  tooth  you  ever 
had.  After  awhile  you  open  your  eyes  and 
there  are  those  same  dainty  little  tools  again — 
the  tool  was  big  because  it  was  on  your  feelings. 

Well,  one  time  I  had  such  an  experience  that 
seemed  tragedy  till  the  softening  and  sanify- 
ing  hand  of  time  had  reduced  it  to  its  right  pro- 
portion. It  was  one  night  a  few  winters  ago 

24 


DISGUISED  COMEDIES 

when  I  had  to  start  on  a  hurry-up  trip  from 
Baltimore  to  Boston.  Boston  was  short  on 
culture  at  the  time  and  I  had  to  be  quick. 
Sort  of  first-aid  to  the  injured,  you  know.  I 
got  the  message  late  at  night  and  had  to  start 
almost  instantly.  It  was  at  a  time  when  there 
had  been  a  lot  of  bad  storms  tearing  up  and 
down  that  turbulent  old  Atlantic  Coast — rain, 
hail,  snow,  deluges,  cloudbursts  and  everything 
like  that.  It  was,  to  be  accurate  in  the  matter, 
at  just  the  time  when  the  Pennsylvania  Rail- 
road Company's  old  Union  Station  at  Balti- 
more had  been  washed  out.  You  may  never 
have  heard  of  this.  I  don't  blame  you. 
There  were  people  living  within  two  blocks  of 
that  station  who  didn't  know  it  was  ever  washed 
out.  But  I  knew  it.  I  was  right  there  and 
saw  the  janitors  do  it.  It  was  at  that  unholy 
hour  of  the  morning  between  one  and  two  when 
the  caretakers  of  a  railway  station  begin  to 
massage  and  manicure  and  chiropodize  and 
marcel  the  floors.  They  had  gathered  up  all 

25 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

the  iron  cuspidors  and  put  them  up  on  the  seats 
where  the  other  folks  usually  sat;  they  had 
taken  the  perforated  rubber  mats  and  fes- 
tooned them  over  the  ticket-windows,  the  news- 
stands and  the  inflammation  bureau,  and  then 
they  had  started  to  mop  out.  I  was  mopped 
out  with  the  other  foreign  substances  and 
debris,  and  I  was  walking  back  and  forth  out- 
side the  waiting  room,  with  a  heavy  grip  hang- 
ing to  each  hand,  wishing  to  goodness  my  bed- 
room would  hurry  up  and  come  along.  All 
of  a  sudden,  while  my  eyes  were  nearly  shut 
with  sleepiness  and  my  knees  wabbling  with 
weariness,  I  saw  a  sign  stuck  up  on  the  fence. 
You  know  the  fence  I  mean — that  tall,  spiky 
iron  picket  fence  they  have  in  city  stations  to 
keep  the  passengers  from  all  going  out  and  get- 
ting on  the  train  before  it  comes.  That's  the 
very  fence  I  mean.  Well,  that  sign  they  had 
stuck  up  there  hadn't  any  sense  in  it  at  all. 
Most  stuck-up  things  haven't.  If  I  had  been 
at  myself,  I  shouldn't  have  paid  any  attention 

26 


DISGUISED  COMEDIES 

to  that  silly  sign.  But  I  was  a  desperate  man. 
I  was  willing  to  try  anything,  once,  that  offered 
any  relief.  That  sign  said:  "Use  This  Gate 
for  Sleeper !" 

I  went  up  and  examined  that  inviting  gate. 
It  seemed  a  poor  prospect.  I  never  felt  a 
harder  gate  in  my  whole  life.  But  the  hard- 
ness alone  wouldn't  have  scared  me  off.  I 
have  become  accustomed  and  toughened  and 
calloused  to  those  macadamized  mattresses  they 
have  in  some  boardinghouses  and  hotels.  The 
kind  that  make  you  dream  you  are  sleeping 
on  the  dining  room  table  with  none  of  the  dishes 
removed.  So  the  hardness  alone  wouldn't  have 
disturbed  me,  but  the  bars  were  so  wide  apart 
and  so  up-and-down  I  didn't  see  how  anybody 
of  my  corpulent  build  could  even  adhere  to 
them  without  at  least  a  few  lessons  by  mail 
from  Scranton,  Pa.,  so  I  let  the  gate  alone  and 
waited  till  the  other  and  more  conventional  ar- 
rangement came  in. 

Finally  that  car  did  thunder  into  the  sta- 
27 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

tion — a  great  long  car  as  long  as  this  building, 
with  a  nice,  poetic  name  on  the  side,  like  Ma- 
laria, or  Sarsaparilla,  or  Pyorrhea,  or  Skow- 
hegan,  or  Sciatica  or  some  such  name  as  they 
always  paint  on  a  sleeping-car — they  wouldn't 
dare  paint  it  on  a  car  that  wasn't  sleeping;  any 
car  that  was  awake  would  fight  back!  That 
car  rolled  in  and  I  stumbled  through  the  gate- 
way and  fell  up  the  steps.  As  I  did  so  I 
started  down  that  endless  aisle — you  know 
that  aisle,  with  its  double  row  of  green  brocaded 
curtains  down  to  the  floor  on  each  side,  with 
a  double  chorus  of  green,  brocaded  snores  in 
every  tone  of  voice  to  which  human  flesh  is  heir, 
from  prima  donna  soprano  down  to  basso  pro 
thundero — everything  that  Oscar  Hammer- 
stein  had  ever  dreamed  of!  They  had  never 
rehearsed  together  before  and  they  weren't  re- 
hearsing together  then,  by  about  four  octaves. 
But  they  were  rehearsing,  all  right!  They 
never  missed  a  snort  or  skipped  a  grunt  while 
I  listened.  And  that  chorus  was  going  up 

28 


DISGUISED  COMEDIES 

through  the  ventilators  into  the  uneasy  night 
— it  was  awful!  Right  in  the  middle  of  this 
tunnel  of  horrors  and  snores  and  things  I  met 
the  conductor  of  this  sleeping-car,  also  of  this 
orchestra.  And  I  said  to  him,  as  sleepily  as 
a  tired  child  ever  told  its  tireder  mother  good- 
night, "What  can  you  give  me?"  And  he 
looked  at  me  with  complete  amazement  as  he 
said,  "What  do  you  want?"  I  said,  "What  do 
I  want !  In  a  sleeping-car  at  2  G.  M.,  with  one 
eye  tight  shut  and  the  other  going  out  of  busi- 
ness— what  do  I  want !  I  want  a  dime's  worth 
of  cranberries  and  a  bucket  of  lard."  And 
then  a  peculiar  thing  took  place ;  in  some  way 
or  other  without  my  explaining  it  a  particle, 
that  sleeping-car  conductor,  with  almost  human 
intelligence  seemed  to  understand  what  I  was 
in  there  for;  and  he  said,  rather  sheepishly, 
this  time,  "Upper  ten?" 

"Well,"  I  said,  "the  people  who  have  traced 
my  family  the  furthest  back,  say  I'm  not.  But 
if  I  make  that  impression  on  a  total  stranger 

29 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

this  way,  this  is  surely  a  proud  moment  in  my 
life." 

Well,  we  talked  the  matter  over  a  little  more 
earnestly  and  intelligently  than  that,  and 
finally  we  split  the  difference — I  took  lower 
five. 

I  started  to  get  into  that  upholstered  dog- 
house, and  the  real  trouble  set  in.  I  suppose 
every  one  of  you,  some  time  or  other,  has  had 
that  same  helpless,  easy-mark  experience,  away 
off  from  home  somewhere,  at  the  dead  and 
buried  of  night,  among  total  and  snoring 
strangers,  handing  out  to  some  man  you  never 
saw  or  heard  of  before,  a  nice,  long,  green,  ac- 
cordion-plaited ticket  that  cost  you  about 
eleven  dollars  and  sixty-eight  cents  a  yard, 
without  war  tax,  fondly  hoping  to  get  that 
same  ticket  back  in  the  morning  out  of  that 
mess  he  shoves  into  his  pocket!  Now  if  that 
doesn't  require  faith,  what  does,  I'd  like  to 
know?  I  always  recite  this  little  involuntary 
perversion  of  a  familiar  prayer: 

30 


DISGUISED  COMEDIES 

Now  I  lay  me  down  to  sleep; 

The  train  man  will  my  ticket  keep. 
But  should  he  die  before  I  wake, 

What  could  I  do,  for  goodness'  sake! 

After  offering  up  this  pitiful  petition  I 
bumped  my  head  the  customary  number  of 
times  against  that  upper  berth  that  they  always 
let  down  whether  anybody's  going  to  roost  up 
there  or  not — I  don't  know  why,  unless  it's  for 
a  sounding  board — and  then  started  to  get  un- 
der that  blanket.  Please  remember,  I  said 
"started"  to  get  under  it.  Now  whoever  had 
laid  out  the  ground  plans  and  specifications  of 
that  foolish  blanket — that  is,  whoever  had  made 
the  original  government  survey  for  that 
blanket,  hadn't  been  thinking  of  me  at  the 
time,  at  all.  He  had  been  thinking  of  some 
much  briefer  person  than  I  am.  That  blanket 
was  the  short  way  both  ways.  But  I  started 
to  get  under  it  and  when  I  start  anything  I  am 
so  stubborn  that  I  keep  right  on  working  at  it 
till  I  get  the  answer  somehow.  So  I  kept  on 

31 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

working  at  that — doily,  till  I  got  under  it.  I 
got  every  bit  of  me  under  it.  But  not  all  at 
once!  Mercy  no!  I  wasn't  simultaneously 
under  it.  That  is,  I  wasn't  unanimously  un- 
der it.  I'm  not  sure  there  was  a  working  ma- 
jority of  me  under  it  at  any  one  time  during 
the  night.  I  got  under  it  on  the  installment 
plan.  That  is,  I  got  under  it  by  sections. 
And  as  fast  as  one  panel  of  me  got  under  it, 
the  one  that  had  been  under  just  before,  got 
out. 

I  kept  this  up  for  quite  awhile,  playing  hide 
and  seek  and  ring  around  a  rosy  and  drop-the- 
handkerchief  and  prisoner's  base  with  myself, 
until  I  got  warm — I  got  too  warm! — with  the 
exercise,  and  too  tired  to  keep  it  up.  I  won- 
dered what  to  do  next.  I  couldn't  be  a  hu- 
man merry-go-around  or  a  pin-wheel  all  night. 
I  tried  to  remember  what  the  school-books  on 
hygiene  had  said,  whether  it  was  better  to 
freeze  the  toes  or  the  adam's  apple.  I  couldn't 
remember — I  was  too  confused.  But  while  I 

32 


DISGUISED  COMEDIES 

was  puzzled  over  it  an  inspiration  came  to  me. 
I  took  the  top  sheet  and  tore  it  in  two,  wrapped 
one  half  of  it  about  my  shuddering  shoulders, 
the  other  half  about  my  well-developed  Ohio 
feet,  and  the  blanket  over  the  remainder  of  me. 
And  there  I  lay,  looking  like  a  Red  Cross  pa- 
tient in  an  ambulance,  and  feeling  like  Mother 
Earth  in  the  old  climate  maps  that  showed  the 
world  with  torrid  and  temperate  zones  near  the 
equator,  and  frozen  at  the  extremities. 

And  just  to  show  you  that  the  great  Ameri- 
can bonehead  we  have  always  with  us,  I  told 
that  story  pretty  much  the  same  way  not  very 
long  ago  to  an  audience  of  two  thousand  souls 
and  three  bolsheviki  in  a  Southern  Indiana 
town,  and  they  laughed  in  the  right  places. 
When  I  told  of  the  sarcastic  answer,  about 
cranberries  and  other  groceries,  that  I  had 
given  the  foolish  sleeping-car  conductor  when 
he  asked  me  what  I  wanted  in  his  sleeper,  they 
lay  down  on  the  benches  and  wept  for  joy.  I 
thought  "My,  such  nice,  bright  people!"  But 

33 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

when  it  was  all  over  and  I  was  on  my  way  back 
to  the  management's  tent,  I  was  overtaken  by 
one  of  the  directors  of  the  chautauqua,  his  wife 
with  him,  who  grabbed  me  by  the  coat  and  said : 

"That  sleeping-car  thing  was  the  funniest 
thing  we  ever  heard.  We  thought  we'd  die. 
But,  just  to  settle  a  dispute,  what  did  you  want 
with  those  cranberries?^) 

I  didn't  tell  them.  They  seemed  to  have 
figured  out  somehow  what  I  wanted  with  the 
lard — I  suppose  it  was  to  "shorten"  the 
journey. 

But  while  I  was  fooling  with  those  abbreviated 
bed-clothes  and  trying  to  decide  which  part  of 
me  had  better  go  into  cold  storage,  I  think  I 
must  have  been  in  almost  as  bad  a  fix  as  the 
man  my  dear  old  friend ,  yes,  and  your  dear  old 
friend,  Bob  Burdette — now  gone  to  a  glorious 
reward  if  there  is  in  heaven  the  justice  I  be- 
lieve there  is — told  me  about.  This  is  the  only 
story  I  use  that  I  had  no  hand  in  building. 
So  I  am  immensely  prouder  both  of  the  story 

34 


DISGUISED  COMEDIES 

and  of  its  author  than  of  any  other  thing  I  shall 
give  you.  "Bob"  said:  "Boy,  you  are  com- 
ing onto  the  platform  and  I  am  stepping  off. 
I  leave  you  this  story  as  a  legacy."  Just  a 
word  here,  before  I  tell  this  story — a  word  of 
tribute  from  one  great  humorist  to  another — 
no,  I  am  not  the  one  great  humorist  referred 
to,  and  mine  is  not  the  tribute.  I  was  talking 
with  the  late  James  Whitcomb  Riley  about 
our  mutual  friend  Burdette.  Riley  knew  and 
loved  the  man,  and  we  were  agreeing  beauti- 
fully about  him.  I  remarked,  apropos  of  the 
sweet  sincerity  of  Mr.  Burdette: 

"When  Bob  Burdette  says  'God  bless  you/ 
he  means  it." 

"Yes,"  quickly  replied  Mr.  Riley,  "and  so 
does  God,  when  Bob  says  it." 

That  was  more  tribute  to  the  square  inch 
than  I  ever  saw  crowded  into  a  single  short 
sentence.  But  here  is  the  yarn,  which  shows 
about  the  worst  possible  case  of  suspense : 

Once  upon  a  time  two  men  were  crossing  a 
35 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

large  field.  And  when  they  had  got  to  the 
middle  of  the  field  a  big,  brindle  bull  came  along 
to  show  them  the  nearest  way  to  the  fence. 
One  of  the  men  found  a  tree  and  he  climbed  it 
as  rapidly  as  possible.  The  other  man  couldn't 
get  to  the  tree  in  time,  but  seeing  a  large,  so- 
ciable-looking hole  in  the  ground,  he  jumped 
into  the  hole.  The  bull  made  a  lunge  for  him 
and  just  missed  him  as  he  went  down,  and 
jumped  over  the  hole.  The  man  came  up 
again;  the  bull  turned,  saw  him,  snorted  and 
came  back  at  him.  Down  went  the  man,  over 
went  the  bull,  up  came  the  man,  back  came  the 
bull,  till  the  man  up  in  the  tree  got  excited,  and 
called  down: 

"You  big  fool  you,  why  don't  you  stay  down 
in  that  hole?  You'll  get  that  bull  so  mad  he'll 
keep  us  here  all  summer!" 

The  man  in  the  hole  yelled  back : 

"Big  fool  yourself!  There's  a  bear  in  this 
hole!" 


36 


THE  PATHOS-MINGLED  KIND 

THE  PATHOS-MINGLED  KIND 

But  there  are  other  kinds  of  humor  besides 
that  of  stupidity  and  situation.  There  is  a 
purely  rustic  humor  that  is  in  a  class  to  itself. 
It  is  so  close  to  nature  that  always  it  borders 
on  pathos — one  never  knows  when  it  is  going 
to  slip  over  the  line  and  be  the  other  thing  for 
a  moment,  or  how  long  it  will  stay  away  when 
it  leaves  us.  Real  humor  and  pathos  are  both 
emotional.  And  they  lie  so  closely  snuggled 
up  to  each  other  in  the  human  breast  that  you 
can't  cut  them  apart  without  drawing  blood 
on  both. 

An  instance  of  that  kind  may  be  found  in  the 
story  of  an  old  man  who  had  been  poor  all  his 
life  up  to  his  sixtieth  year,  when  a  war  baby 
or  the  discovery  of  oil  removed  his  financial 
worries.  His  education  had  been  neglected, 
but  he  had  always  been  unusually  fond  of 
music.  He  spent  his  money  freely  following 
about  the  country  everything  that  was  called 

37 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

music  and  some  things  that  were  music.  Any- 
thing to  gratify  that  master  passion  of  his. 
But  he  had  come  back  in  his  still  older  days  to 
his  first  love  in  music  as  most  of  us  do  in  most 
things,  and  he  firmly  believed  that  the  first 
"concourse  of  sweet  sounds"  that  had  thrilled 
his  boyish  being  from  core  to  rind  was  the  best 
yet.  And  this  is  what  he  told  me  about  it: 

THE  OLD  CABINET  ORGAN 

I've  heerd  Vic  Herbert  an5  his  gang,  I've  heerd  Phil 

Sowzy's  band ! 

I've  heerd  th'  best  musicianers  they  is  in  all  th'  land. 
I've  heerd  them  nail-mill  pieces  'at  they  blame  ol' 

Wagner  fer ; 
But  nothin'  'mongst  'em  one  an'  all  hez  made  my 

feelin's  stir 
Like  that  ol'  cab'net  organ,  with  but  jest  eight  stops 

in  all, 
A-settin'  in  our  ol'  best  room,  backed  up  agin'  th' 

wall, 
With  th'  organ  agent  playin'  it — while  we  all  stood 

around, 
An'  none  of  us  a  breathin'  lest  we'd  lose  a  single 

sound 

38 


THE  PATHOS-MINGLED  KIND 

The  day  that  organ  come  t'  us,  I'll  al'ays  hev  in 

mind 
Till  this  ol'  head  gits   chilly,  an'  these  glimmerin' 

eyes  gits  blind; 
My  big  school-teacher  sister'd  ben  away  frum  home 

a  spell, 
An'  ben  a  takin'  lessons  till  she  played  some  things 

right  well; 
An'  nothin'  else'd  do  'er  when  she  drawed  her  winter's 


But  she  must  hev  a  organ  like  the  one  she'd  lairned 

t'  play  ; 

Us  folks  all  sort  o'  pooh-poohed  at  th'  idee  fer  awhile, 
But  ye  know  th'  one  that  aims  it  is  th'  one  t'  spend 

th'  pile., 

An'  —  I  wuz  jest  a  goin'  on  t'  tell  how  it  got  out 
Amongst  th'  organ  agents,  what  our  gal  hed  thought 

about  ; 
But   I   hain't    nary   idee;    cause   she   hedn't   said   a 

thing  — 
It  must  'a'  ben  some  sparrer  jest  a  passin'  on  th' 

wing 
'At  ketched  th'  word  an'  tuck  it;  cause  it  wa'n't  a 

week,  I  guess, 
Afore  that  gal  wuz  wear  in'  ev'ry  day  her  Sunday 

dress, 

39 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

A-entertainin'  men   *at  sold,   each  one,  th'  highest 

grade, 
An'  th'  hollyhocks  wuz  smothered  with  th'  dust  their 

wagons  made! 

Bimeby  two  fellers  lugged  one  up  th'  steps  an'  in  th' 

door, 

An'  set  it  in  th'  best  room,  an'  begin  t'  make  it  roar 
An'  whine  an'  howl  an'  tootle  like  a  steam  pianner 

goes — 
Ye  ort  t'  seen  us  men-folks  in  th'  field  throw  down 

our  hoes 
An'  stop  th'  plows  an'  ev'ry thing,  an'  jest  go  on  th' 

run, 
A-wipin'  sweat  an'  tearin'  on,  right  through  th'  bilin' 

sun — 
Till  we  stood,  in  silent  wonder,  thinkin',  'mid  them 

thrillin'  strains, 
Thoughts   of  instermental  music,  jest  as  crude   as 

Jubal  Cain's! 

That  best  room,  with  rag  carpets  an'  its  chromos  on 

th'  wall, 
Spread  out,  an'  got  lots  bigger'n  th'  biggest  concert 

hall; 
An'  sev'ral  of  us  turned  away  t'  cough  an'  wipe  our 

eyes, 

40 


THE  PATHOS-MINGLED  KIND 

While  th'  clouds  seemed  floatin'  under  us,  we  got  that 

clost  th'  skies. 
Well,  'fore  them  fellers  left,  I  guess  they  knowed 

they'd  made  a  sale, 
At  prices  that  made  us  folks  think  th'  organ  men'd 

fail. 

Th'  fellers  said  themselves  it  wuz  th'  very  lowest  price 
They  got  fer  other  organs,  t'wuzn't  half  so  big,  ner 

nice. 

Then  all  th'  family — only  Pap — tuck  turns  at  tryin' 

t'  play ; 
W'y  mother  ust  t'  set  an'  gouge  out  tunes  fer  half  a 

day! 
An'  ev'ry  one  'at  hit  th'   stool  commenced  t'  feel 

around 
An'  dig  up  "Jesus  Lover,"  with  one  finger,  jest  b* 

sound. 
The  neighbors,  settin'  on  th'  porch,  'way  after  set  o* 

sun, 
Looked  solemn,  in  th'  moonlight,  thinkin'  what  our 

gal  hed  done — 
A-squanderin'   her   money   fer   a   organ,   when   she 

knowed 
She  orto  gone  an'  paid  it  on  th'  debts  her  daddy 

owed! 


41 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

I've  heerd  Walt.  Damrosch  an'  his  gang,  I've  heerd 

Phil  Sowzy's  band ! 

I've  heerd  th'  best  musicianers  they  is  in  all  th'  land ; 
I've  heerd  them  'sault  an'  batteries  they  blame  ol' 

Wagner  fer — 
In  fact  I've  listened  to  'bout  all  they  is,  'at's  made  a 

stir; 

But  when  in  dreams  I  think  I  hear  th'  blessed  heav- 
enly choirs 
An'   big  arch-angels   pummelin'   celestial  harps   an' 

lyres, 
That  music  then  reminds  me  (ef  my  thoughts  tetch 

airth  at  all) 
Of  that  eight-stop  cab'net  organ  shoved  agin  our 

best-room  wall. 

ANIMAL  HUMOR 

And  the  sense  of  humor  is  not  confined  to  the 
human  race.  Animals  have  it,  I  am  sure. 
At  least  they  have  that  lowest,  most  rudimen- 
tary and  chaplinesque  type  that  characterizes 
the  practical  joker.  One  bit  of  evidence  in  be- 
half of  the  four-legged  sense  of  humor  pops 
into  my  mind  just  now.  We  had  a  sheep  on 
our  Southern  Ohio  farm — not  a  lady  sheep. 

42 


ANIMAL  HUMOR 

His  forehead  was  about  eleven  times  harder 
than  the  celebrated  Rock  of  Gibraltar.  His 
might  well  have  been  the  original  marble  brow 
written  of  so  much  by  the  poets.  It  was  hard 
enough  to  be  granite.  My  brother  and  I,  with 
boyish  zeal  for  certain  kinds  of  things,  had 
spent  a  great  deal  of  my  father's  time  teaching 
that  Southdown  sheep  etiquette.  And  he  had 
been  an  apt  pupil.  We  had  specialized  on 
teaching  him  that  it  was  bad  manners  for  any- 
one to  turn  a  back  on  him.  The  sheep  got  this 
point  easily.  Any  one  who  was  so  foolish  as  to 
turn  his  back  on  that  sheep  immediately  re- 
gretted it.  As  a  regret-foundry  that  sheep 
was  a  success.  You  furnished  the  back,  he  fur- 
nished the  regret — fifty-fifty. 

About  the  time  this  story  begins,  I  was  en- 
gaged in  the  delightful  process  of  teaching  a 
young  calf  how  to  drink  milk  out  of  a  bucket. 
Any  one  who  ever  attempted  to  wean  a  calf 
away  from  the  parent  stem  and  induce  it  to 
take  nourishment  otherwise,  knows  what  I  was 

43 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

"up  against."  You  take  the  calf  by  one  ear 
and  the  tail,  back  it  into  a  fence  corner,  stand 
astride  its  neck,  put  two  fingers  of  one  hand 
in  its  mouth, — fingers  you  may  never  need 
again — the  heel  of  the  other  hand  on  the  back 
of  its  hard  but  empty  head,  shove  its  nose  down 
in  the  milk,  and  keep  it  there.  The  calf  blows 
bubbles  for  a  long  time.  Al  out  the  time  it 
has  made  enough  lather  to  sha  Te  with  and  you 
think  it  is  choked  to  death  but  are  afraid  it 
isn't,  it  pulls  its  nose  out  of  the  bucket  and 
snorts.  When  it  does  this  combination  snort 
and  cough,  the  air  is  crowded  with  sprayed 
milk,  for  a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  eight  directions. 
You  get  your  share.  Anybody  who  has  ever 
taught  as  many  as  four  or  five  calves  to  drink 
from  a  bucket  never  needs  to  drink  milk  during 
the  rest  of  his  life.  He  is  saturated  to  his 
marrow,  already  and  for  keeps,  and  when  the 
sun  shines  hot  on  him  he  curdles. 

After  a  few  of  these  stunts,  the  calf  purely 
by  accident  swallows  some  milk.     He  never 

44 


ANIMAL  HUMOR 

meant  to.     Then  he  sees  a  great  light,  and 
from  that  time  on  the  work  is  easier. 

But  about  one  calf  out  of  every  five  hundred 
is  a  congenital  idiot  and  won't  learn  to  drink 
at  all.  This  one  I  was  working  with  at  that 
time  was  the  five-hundredth  calf.  He  was  a 
little,  roan,  congenital  idiot.  He  had  had  his 
fourth  or  fifth  lesson  and  wasn't  through  with 
the  finger  exercises!  Couldn't  even  run  the 
scales!  We  were  getting  a  little  discouraged 
about  him.  Just  at  this  stage  of  things  that 
sheep  of  ours  had  been  turned  into  the  calf 
lot — the  calf  cafe,  as  it  were.  I  had  to  keep 
one  eye  on  the  calf  and  one  on  the  sheep.  I 
nearly  became  permanently  wall-eyed  from 
the  experience.  Mother  was  impatiently 
watching  me.  The  milking  was  late  that 
morning  anyway,  and  it  was  hot,  and  I  should 
have  been  in  the  harvest  field  long  before.  Be- 
ing the  youngest  boy  on  the  farm  I  was  of 
course  expected  to  do  a  full  day's  work  at  the 
house  and  another  one  in  the  field,  which  is  a 

45 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

hard  thing  to  do  in  one  day  when  a  fellow 
isn't  twins.  Mother  said: 

"Quit  fooling  with  that  sheep,  and  feed  that 
calf!" 

I  said:  "Mother,  I  know  why  I'm  watch- 
ing that  sheep." 

She  said:     "Give  me  that  bucket." 

I  hated  to  do  it.  She  was  the  only  mother 
I  had.  If  I  had  had  a  whole  scad  of  mothers  I 
wouldn't  have  cared  so  much. 

Mother  had  always  told  us  we  should  mind 
without  talking  back.  I  thought  this  would 
be  a  good  time  to  try  it  out.  So  I  didn't  talk 
back.  I  handed  her  the  bucket  and  stepped 
out  through  the  gate,  whistling  softly  to  my- 
self that  old  war-time  melody,  "Just  before  the 
battle,  Mother,"  with  "Farewell,  Mother,  you 
may  never  press  me  to  your  heart  again" — 
you  know  the  piece — and  hoping  to  goodness 
he  wouldn't  hit  her  as  hard  as  he  could. 

Mother  actually  turned  her  back  on  that 
sheep  and  began  dabbling  her  hand  in  the  milk, 

46 


A  DIFFERENT  MEMORY 

saying,  "Sook,  calfy,  sook,  calfy!"  seductively 
while  the  calf  gave  her  the  evil  eye  and  walked 
backward. 

That  sheep  turned  his  head  on  one  side  as 
much  as  to  say: 

"M-m-m-m!  Do  my  eyes  deceive  me! 
Has  somebody  actually  had  the  nerve  to  turn 
a  back  this  way?  Has  opportunity  knocked 
at  my  door?" 

He  trotted  up  stiff -legged  behind  her,  struck 
her  gently,  just  back  of  the  knees,  and  she  sat 
down  flat  on  the  grass,  spilling  every  drop  of 
that  milk  on  herself.  And  when  she  arose  and 
looked  around  to  address  a  few  well-chosen 
and  sincere  words  to  that  sheep,  he  was  a  hun- 
dred yards  off,  with  his  face  the  other  way, 
while  his  sides  shook  with  as  hearty  laughter  as 
I  have  ever  seen. 

A  DIFFERENT  MEMORY 

But  whenever  I  tell  that  grotesque  story, 
true  though  it  is  when  shorn  of  its  embellish- 

47 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

ments,  I  find  in  myself  a  fear  lest  some  person 
some  time  in  some  audience  may  have  the  opin- 
ion that  a  man  labeled  a  humorist  has  no  other 
kind  of  recollection  of  the  sort  of  mother  I  had. 
And  just  to  show  you  the  difference,  and  to 
let  you  know  there  are  other  more  vivid  and  in- 
fluential memories  than  that  one,  I'm  going 
to  give  you  a  pretty  sharp  contrast — a  memory 
that  arose  later  in  life,  a  poem  that  my  heart 
dictated  and  which  my  hand  put  down  in  writ- 
ing. 

You  know  every  human  who  grows  up  and 
does  any  thinking,  passes  through  a  stage  of 
religious  green  sweats,  when  he  thinks,  with  a 
delighted  thrill,  that  he  is  an  infidel  and  de- 
liciously  wicked  and  maybe  all  the  good  folks 
are  holding  prayer-meetings  about  him. 
Eventually,  if  he  has  been  properly  brought 
up,  he  returns  to  the  faith  of  his  fathers  and 
mothers,  and  the  seething  stops.  About  the 
time  when  sanity  threatened  to  return  to  me 
and  I  was  genuinely  uneasy  lest  the  old  faith 

48 


A  DIFFERENT  MEMORY 

might  have  deserted  me  forever,  my  heart,  as 
I  have  said,  dictated  this  poem  to  my  hand: 

THE  CRY  OF  THE  ALIEN 

I'm  an  alien — I'm  an  alien  to  the  faith  my  mother 

taught  me; 
I'm  an  alien  to  the  God  that  heard  my  mother 

when  she  cried; 
I'm  a  stranger  to  the  comfort  that  my  "Now  I  lay 

me"  brought  me, 
To  the  Everlasting  Arms  that  held  my  father  when 

he  died. 
I  hare  spent  a  life-time  seeking  things  I  spurned  when 

I  had  found  them ; 

I  have  fought  and  been  rewarded  in  many  a  win- 
ning cause; 

But  I'd  take  them  all — fame,  fortune  and  the  pleas- 
ures that  surround  them, 

And  exchange  them  for  the  faith  that  made  my 
mother  what  she  was. 

I  was  born  where  God  was  closer  to  His  children 

and  addressed  them 
With  the  tenderest  of  messages  through  bird  and 

tree  and  bloom; 

I  was  bred  where  people  stretched  upon  the  velvet 
sod  to  rest  them, 

49 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

Where  the  twilight's  benediction  robbed  the  com- 
ing night  of  gloom. 

But  I've  built  a  wall  between  me  and  the  simple  life 
behind  me ; 

I  have  coined  my  heart  and  paid  it  for  the  fickle 

world's  applause; 

Yet  I  think  His  hand  would  fumble   through  the 
voiceless  dark  and  find  me 

If  I  only  had  the  faith  that  made  my  mother  what 
she  was. 

When  the  great  world  came  and  called  me  I  deserted 

all  to  follow ; 
Never  knowing,  in  my  dazedness,  I  had  slipped  my 

hand  from  His — 
Never  noting,  in  my  blindness,  that  the  bauble  fame 

was  hollow, 
That  the  gold  of  wealth  was  tinsel,  as  I  since  have 

learned  it  is — 
No,  I've  spent  a  life-time  seeking  things  I've  spurned 

when  I  have  found  them; 
I  have  fought  and  been  rewarded  in  many  a  petty 

cause ; 

But  I'd  trade  them  all — fame,  fortune  and  the  pleas- 
ures that  surround  them, 

For  a  little  of  the  faith  that  made  my  mother  what 
she  was. 

50 


HUMOR  FROM  AFFLICTION 

HUMOR  FROM  AFFLICTION 

There  is  also  the  humor  of  affliction.  We 
should  never  have  a  disposition  mean  enough 
to  laugh  at  an  affliction  itself,  but  there  are 
situations  that  grow  out  of  affliction  that  are 
funny  even  to  the  victims  of  them.  It  is  fine 
when  the  victim  of  the  affliction  can  laugh  at 
it  instead  of  wearing  it  as  a  chip  on  the  shoul- 
der. You  know  the  story  of  the  old  lady  who 
was  deaf  and  whose  son  had  accumulated,  at 
college,  a  friend  named  Specknoodle.  Com- 
ing home  for  the  holidays  son  brought  Speck- 
noodle  with  him.  Undertaking  to  introduce 
him  to  Mother,  the  boy  made  heavy  weather 
of  it.  In  a  loud  tone  he  said:  "Mother,  this 
is  Mr.  Specknoodle." 

The  lady  looked  wildly  at  her  son  and  said : 
"What  did  you  say?" 

"I  say,"  said  the  son  in  a  still  louder  voice, 
"this  is  Mr.  Specknoodle." 

Cupping  her  hand  to  her  ear  the  old  lady 
51 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

again  said:  "Would  you  please  say  that 
again,  son?  I  didn't  get  it,  I  fear/' 

Bracing  himself  and  lifting  his  voice  to  a 
yell,  the  blushing  young  man  again  announced : 
"This  is  Mister  Specknoodle!" 

The  lady  shook  her  head  sadly  and  said: 
"Son,  we'll  just  have  to  give  it  up.  I  can't 
make  a  thing  out  of  it  but  Specknoodle." 

Another  signal  instance  of  the  humor  that 
comes  from  trouble  is  the  story  of  the  stammer- 
ing farm-hand  who  worked  for  a  deaf  farmer. 
Anybody  can  see  there  would  be  trouble  there, 
right  along.  It  was  a  fearful  combination. 

The  line  was  always  "busy."  One  morning 
the  old  man  wanted  the  young  man  to  do  some 
work,  while  the  young  man  tried  to  tell  the 
farmer  the  cows  were  in  the  corn.  Finally  the 
old  man  got  the  idea,  and  was  peeved. 

"You  stutterin'  fool,  you!"  he  yelled. 

"I  c-c-can  t-talk  as  f-f-f-fast  as  y-you  can 
h-h-hear  me!"  answered  the  hand. 

Stammerers  enjoy  their  own  affliction-born 
52 


HUMOR  FROM  AFFLICTION 

humor,  and  are  usually  witty.  One  of  the  wit- 
tiest men  this  country  has  known  was  William 
Travers  of  Baltimore  and  New  York,  famil- 
iarly known  as  "Stutterin'  Bill"  Travers. 
When  Travers  had  been  living  awhile  in  New 
York,  a  Baltimore  friend  met  him  and  had  con- 
versation with  him.  After  a  bit  the  Baltimore 
man  said:  "Bill,  you  stutter  worse  here  than 
you  did  in  Baltimore." 

"B-b-b-bigger  town,"  explained  Bill. 

Absentmindedness  should  be  regarded  more 
as  an  affliction  than  as  a  fault.  We  all  know 
some  absentminded  people  whose  queer  capers 
will  furnish  us  plenty  of  illustrations  without 
me  supplying  any.  This  one  instance,  how- 
ever, fell  beneath  my  own  observation.  On 
the  Lackawanna,  between  New  York  and 
Dover,  N.  J.,  I  saw  a  man  dreamily  eating  a 
banana,  beside  an  open  window.  The  con- 
ductor came  through  just  as  the  man  had  fin- 
ished his  banana.  He  threw  his  ticket  out  of 
the  window  and  handed  the  banana  peel  to  the 

53 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

conductor.  They  had  one  awful  argument 
about  it ;  the  man  insisting  that  the  conductor 
knew  he  had  a  ticket,  and  the  conductor  in- 
sisting that  a  stale  banana  peel  would  be  re- 
garded as  a  queer  thing  to  turn  in  with  his  re- 
port. Would  look  like  a  skin  game  on  the 
company. 

Another  well-known  case  of  the  humor  of 
affliction  is  that  of  a  young  traveling  man  friend 
of  mine  who  had  been  on  the  road  just  a  lit- 
tle while — not  long  enough  to  acquire  the 
galvanized  stomach-lining  which  is  our  lot 
later  on.  One  time  he  went  into  a  place  in 
Southwestern  Missouri,  which  was  called  a 
restaurant.  It  really  wasn't  that.  Its  right 
name  was  "appetite  cure."  It  worked  just 
like  this :  You  went  in  there  hungry,  ordered 
a  meal,  took  one  good  look  at  the  meal  and 
then  you  weren't  hungry.  Just  like  that. 
You  merely  tightened  your  belt  and  went 
away.  This  young  man  went  in  while  waiting 
for  his  train.  The  tablecloth  first  attracted  his 

54 


HUMOR  FROM  AFFLICTION 

attention.  His  attention  was  not  the  first 
thing  that  tablecloth  had  attracted.  It  had 
been  a  very  attractive  tablecloth  and  all  it  had 
attracted  had  staid  there.  That  cloth  con- 
tained an  accurate,  wholly  authentic  and  fully 
illustrated  history  of  everything  that  had  been 
served  on  it  for  the  past  two  years.  There 
were  petrified  coffee  drops  in  the  sugar-bowl, 
and  day-before-yesterday's  soft-boiled  rem- 
nants were  dried  in  the  spoons.  About  the 
time  he  had  horrifiedly  invoiced  this  display,  the 
girl  who  was  going  to  wait  on  him  came  in. 
She  was  funny  looking.  She  would  have  been 
taller  if  she  had  laid  down.  She  was  a  pe- 
culiar-looking girl  with  a  peculiar  walk  in  life. 
Did  you  ever  see  anybody  bring  in  a  backlog 
that  was  too  big  to  lift?  They  just  thump  it 
in  one  corner  at  a  time.  That  is  the  way  she 
came  in.  She  threw  down  a  limp  napkin,  a 
glass  of  luke-warm  ice-water,  a  pat  of  half- 
melted  and  anaemic  butter,  and  said: 
"Hashbeef  srteakandcoldmeats  ?" 
55 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

"What's  that?"  he  inquired  in  alarm.  It 
sounded  like  some  new  dish,  and  did  not  sound 
appetizing. 

"HashbeefsteaMiamandeggsandcoldmeats," 
she  amended  and  repeated. 

He  didn't  want  it.  In  a  state  half  of  panic, 
half  of  despair,  he  thought  and  thought.  He 
tried  to  conjure  up  from  memory  something 
that  had  at  sometime  or  other  goaded  a  jaded 
appetite  and  made  it  sit  up  and  take  notice. 
Then  in  mingled  hope  and  fear,  thinking  of  the 
daintiest  food  he  had  ever  eaten,  he  looked  up 
at  the  girl  and  said: 

"Have  you  got  frog's  legs?" 

"No,"  she  answered  calmly,  "rheumatiz." 

A  friend  of  mine  in  Philadelphia  has  no 
more  hair  than  is  worn  by  the  average  porce- 
lain nest-egg.  One  day  he  went  into  a  refec- 
tory for  some  chocolate.  As  he  sat  down,  the 
girl  who  was  to  serve  him  seemed  fascinated 
by  that  glittering  summit  of  his.  She  took  his 
order  in  a  trance,  and  drew  the  beverage  in 

56 


HUMOR  FROM  AFFLICTION 

preoccupied  fashion.  After  tasting  the  con- 
tents of  the  cup  the  patron  looked  up  at  her 
with  some  protest  in  his  eyes  and  voice  and 
said: 

"Say,  girl,  my  cocoa's  cold." 

"Well,  put  your  hat  on  then/'  she  advised. 

A  newspaper  friend  of  mine  who  lives  in 
Sioux  City,  Iowa,  is  passionately  devoted  to 
pig's  feet.  They  are  the  fondest  thing  he  is  of. 
Every  now  and  then  a  pig's  feet  thirst  over- 
whelms him  and  leaves  him  helpless  and  com- 
fortless until  he  gets  them.  One  time  this  de- 
sire for  pork  wrists  attacked  him  when  he  was 
afar  from  home.  Hurrying  into  the  nearest 
restaurant  he  looked  over  the  menu  card,  and 
by  some  strange  chance  the  desired  article  was 
printed  there.  He  ordered  some,  fearing  the 
worst  and  hoping  for  the  best.  They  came  in 
and  were  delicious !  He  inhaled  the  first  order 
and  sent  out  for  more.  The  second  order  fol- 
lowed the  first  and  he  ordered  a  third  cluster. 
While  engaged  in  disposing  of  the  third  batch, 

57 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

he  was  seized  with  a  violent  pain,  in  his  de- 
partment of  the  interior,  and  yelled  for  help. 
The  waiter  was  alarmed  and  hurriedly  sent  for 
the  doctor,  who  came  tearing  in  presently  to 
see  what  was  wrong.  He  found  his  patient 
rolling  on  the  floor  and  groaning  loudly. 
Placing  his  medicine  chest  on  a  chair  the  phy- 
sician asked: 

"Smatter,  bud?" 

"O,  Doc.,  I've  been  eating  pig's  feet,  and  I 
guess — O,  dear  me,  I'll  die! — I  got  too" — 

The  doctor  was  at  work  long  before  so  much 
of  the  explanation  had  been  given,  saying 
comfortingly,  as  he  worked,  "Pig's  feet,  eh? 
Well,  I'll  soon  fix  that.  Be  as  patient  as  you 
can." 

While  talking,  he  had  filled  a  five-grain  gela- 
tine capsule  with  a  white  powder  from  a  vial. 
Placing  the  lid  on  the  capsule  he  handed  it  and 
a  glass  of  water  to  the  sufferer  and  said : 

"Get  outside  that  as  promptly  as  the  Lord'll 
let  you." 

58 


PAINLESS  IDENTIFICATION 

The  patient  did  so,  smiled  a  smile  of  ineffable 
joy  and  sat  up,  beaming:  "Doc.,"  he  said, 
"that  pain's  plumb  gone.  What  was  that  you 
gave  me?" 

"Kelly's  foot-ease,"  answered  the  doctor. 

PAINLESS  IDENTIFICATION 

Still  another  signal  instance  in  which  a 
human  affliction  was  the  absolute  and  essen- 
tial basis  for  the  humorous  incident : 

There  is  a  hotel  man  in  a  small  county-seat 
town  in  Kansas — an  Englishman  by  birth,  who 
stammers.  Some  time  before  the  world  war 
this  gentleman  went  back  to  England  for  a 
visit  to  his  people.  Returning,  he  counted  his 
money  in  New  York  City,  and  feeling  that  he 
had  better  have  a  little  more,  to  keep  him  com- 
fortable on  his  way  to  his  Kansas  home,  he 
wired  to  a  banker  friend  of  his,  named  Joe 
Smith: 

"Send  me  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  dol- 
lars by  telegraph." 

59 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

Mr.  Smith  at  once  wired  a  banking  house  of 
New  York: 

"Pay  to  Ed.  Wood,  on  demand,  one  hundred 
seventy-five  dollars,  our  account.  You  may 
identify  Mr.  Wood  by  a  stammer." 

He  wired  Wood  to  go  get  the  money. 

When  Wood  had  returned  to  his  Kansas 
town  he  went  at  once  to  his  banker  friend  and 
said: 

"J-Joe,  do  you  know  those  bank  p-people 
were  certainly  n-nice  to  me/' 

"I'm  certainly  glad  to  hear  it." 

"They  c-certainly  w-were.  I  w-went  in 
there  and  s-said,  'H-h-have  y-you  g-g-g-got 
any  m-money  here  f-for  Ed  W-Wood?'  And 
they  s-said, ' Y-yes,  we  h-have  a  h-hundred  and 
s-seventy-five  d-ollars.'  I  said,  cSh-sh-sh-shell 
'er  out.'  And  they  handed  it  right  out  with- 
out a-asking  for  a  w-word  of  identifi-identifica- 
tion!" 

Complete  ignorance  is  also  an  affliction,  if 
there  has  been  no  opportunity  to  avoid  it. 

60 


PAINLESS  IDENTIFICATION 

Take  the  case  of  the  costermonger  picked  up 
on  the  streets  of  London  to  take  part  in  the 
coronation  ceremonies  of  the  present  King  of 
England,  George  the — George  the — well,  I've 
lost  his  number.  But  it's  probably  George 
the  last,  as  kings  are  rapidly  going  out  of  style 
on  this  planet,  thank  heaven.  The  committee 
in  charge  of  the  coronation  week  ceremonies 
were  anxious  to  produce,  among  other  things, 
a  good  representation  of  the  early  Roman  in- 
vasion of  Britain.  They  wanted  not  only  to 
reproduce  the  uniforms  of  that  day's  Roman 
soldiery,  but  they  wanted  even  to  get  physical 
types  if  possible.  So  they  took  their  time  look- 
ing. This  costermonger  was  a  genuine  find. 
He  not  only  didn't  know  anything — he  didn't 
even  suspect  anything.  In  spite  of  the  fact 
that  he  was  a  complete  throw-back,  in  features, 
he  had  never  even  heard  of  an  ancient  Roman. 
Yet  when  they  offered  him  four  bob  a  day  to 
wear  the  costume  they  should  put  on  him  and 
do  nothing  but  walk  about  the  streets,  why 

61 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

should  he  refuse?  But  when  they  began  put- 
ting those  foolish  clothes  on  him,  he  had  his 
doubts  and  felt  like  reneging.  They  put  on  a 
three-gallon  helmet  that  felt  like  a  dinner  pot, 
a  thin,  sleeveless  tunic  that  flapped  its  scallops 
about  his  pelvis,  funny-looking  sandals,  with 
crossed  straps  over  the  instep,  gave  him  a  silly 
shield  to  carry,  and  a  spear  as  big  as  a  fence- 
rail.  He  felt  as  if  he  were  being  "had,"  as  we 
say  in  England,  but  he  had  been  paid  in  ad- 
vance and  had  spent  the  money,  so  he  was  in  no 
position  to  back  out.  Therefore  he  shame- 
facedly slunk  along  at  the  head  of  a  cluster  of 
other  phony  Romans,  looking  far  more  like  a 
suck-egg  dog  than  any  of  the  fifty-seven  varie- 
ties of  conqueror.  After  he  had  done  this  for 
two  or  three  hours  until  he  was  almost  worn 
out,  the  procession  was  stopped  on  a  street 
corner  while  some  hitch  in  the  proceedings 
should  become  unhitched.  A  cold  wind  sprang 
up  from  the  channel,  and  the  bogus  Roman 
leader  stood  there  shivering,  covered  with 

62 


BOOMERANG  HUMOR 

goose-pimples  and  confusion.  An  old  lady, 
who  had  been  watching  the  proceedings  with 
intense  interest  and  who  wanted  to  show  her 
knowledge  in  Roman  history,  adjusted  her 
specs  and  approached  the  poor  fellow,  say- 
ing, "I  beg  your  pardon — are  you  Appius 
Claudius?"  "No,"  he  answered  miserably, 
"rmun'appyas'ell!" 

BOOMERANG  HUMOR 

Again,  and  perhaps  among  the  saddest  of 
the  various  kinds  of  humor,  so  far  as  the  hu- 
morist is  concerned,  is  the  humor  that  re- 
bounds or  backfires  and  hits  the  dispenser  of 
it  between  the  eyes.  Sometimes  it  hits  the 
joker  harder  than  it  hits  the  jokee.  It  pains 
me  deeply  to  speak  of  this  sort,  for  so  many  of 
my  own  determined  efforts  have  proved  to 
be  boomerangs. 

A  few  years  ago  I  was  on  my  way  East 
from  Sioux  Falls,  S.  D.,  through  northern 
Iowa,  on  a  Rock  Island  train.  The  train 

63 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

stopped  at  Estherville,  Iowa,  long  enough  to 
let  the  passengers  get  supper  so  as  to  be  able 
to  stand  the  remainder  of  the  trip.  Supper 
was  served  in  an  old  hotel  at  that  town.  The 
passengers  had  all  been  riding  along  scowling 
at  each  other,  which  is  our  beautiful  and  idiotic 
American  custom.  Everybody  had  looked  at 
each  other  with  an  expression  which  meant 
"You  just  dare  speak  to  me  and  see  what  I 
do  to  you!"  This  same  sweet  spirit  of  loving 
neighborliness  went  with  us  into  the  dining- 
room,  and  we  sat  there  in  awful  silence  wait- 
ing for  the  meal.  You  could  hear  a  man  swal- 
low, thirty  feet  away!  The  girls  were  busy 
setting  down  the  usual  canned  tomatoes,  etc., 
served  in  the  usual  dishes.  You  know  that 
real  egg-shell,  genuine  china  they  use  at  places 
like  that — plates  an  incl  thick  and  side  dishes 
looking  like  oval  whetst  nes  with  a  dimple  on 
the  upper  side !  Well,  <  girl  was  busy  around 
my  plate  when  another  girl,  a  few  feet  away, 
dropped  an  enormous  stack  of  those  plates* 

64 


BOOMERANG  HUMOR 

The  stack  was  two  feet  high — she  must  have 
had  five  or  six  of  the  plates  in  it!  The  crash 
startled  everybody — almost  made  us  jump  out 
of  our  clothes.  I  saw  in  the  disturbance,  I 
thought,  an  opportunity  to  break  the  gloom. 
I  knew  I  should  have  to  use  something  ele- 
mentary and  easy,  and  I  turned  to  the  wooden- 
faced  Winifred  or  kalsomined  Carrie  who  was 
waiting  on  me,  and  said: 

"Somebody  dropped  something,  eh?" 

"Yes,"  she  answered  seriously,  "that  girl 
right  over  there  dropped  a  pile  of  plates." 

I  didn't  speak  to  anybody  again  for  two 
days. 

Then  again,  when  I  was  the  "goat":  One 
time  I  attended  an  afternoon  reception  and 
tea-fight,  in  Chicago.  Now  any  man,  who  has 
his  health,  who  attends  an  afternoon  reception 
where  tea  is  served,  deserves  whatever  happens 
to  him.  No  fate  can  be  worse  than  his  deserts. 
I  don't  know  how — O,  yes,  I  remember  now: 
It  was  a  reception  by  the  Daughters  of  the 

65 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

American  Revolution.  And  the  lady  of  the 
house  where  I  was  staying  is  a  member  of  that, 
because  her  father  used  to  run  a  merry-go- 
round.  A  lot  of  those  D.  A.  R.s  get  in  on  an- 
cestry propositions  about  as  authentic  as  that. 
There  was  just  one  other  man  there.  I  didn't 
know  him  or  his  folks,  he  didn't  know  me  or 
mine,  but  misery  drew  us  together.  We 
leaned  against  the  wall,  touching  elbows,  and 
talking  to  each  other  like  long-lost  brothers. 
We  even  got  so  far  in  our  delirium  as  to  begin 
to  talk  about  the  other  folks  there.  Danger- 
ous !  Skating  on  thin  ice !  Finally  I  pointed 
to  one  woman,  near  by,  and  said : 

"There!  That  one  with  the  green  dress. 
She's  the  last  woman  I'd  ever  marry." 

"You're  right,"  said  my  new  friend.  "She's 
the  last  one  I  did  marry." 

THE  WRONG  HENRY 

But  the  worst  case  I  ever  knew  of  the  joke 
rebounding  and  catching  the  joker  was  that  of 


THE  WRONG  HENRY 

the  scared-to-death  man  at  a  mixed  banquet. 
It  was  a  dinner  given  by  and  for  the  members 
of  some  fraternity,  and  the  auxiliary  members 
of  the  other  gender.  After  the  eatables  had 
been  removed,  a  program  of  speeches,  etc.,  was 
given.  A  regulation  had  been  made  that  who- 
ever was  called  on  for  a  talk  must  make  good. 
No  slacking.  He  or  she  must  make  a  speech, 
sing  a  song  or  tell  a  story.  The  whole  thing 
was  diabolically  concocted  to  catch  one  poor 
fellow  there  who  not  only  couldn't  make  a 
speech — one  of  the  commonest  of  human  fail- 
ings— but  knew  he  couldn't,  which  is  one  of 
the  rarest  of  human  virtues.  They  were  going 
to  see  him  suffer.  Everybody  nudged  every- 
body else  and  giggled  when  he  was  called 
upon,  and  the  fellow  was  as  badly  scared  as 
even  his  dearest  enemy  could  have  hoped. 
His  face  was  white,  his  lips  were  lavender,  his 
eyes  protruded  till  you  could  have  snared  them 
with  a  rope,  his  hair  was  involuntarily  pompa- 
dour, his  adam's  apple  went  up  and  down  like 

67 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

an  elevator  in  a  department  store,  his  knees 
were  shaking  so  he  had  to  hold  to  the  table  for 
support — he  was  a  sight!  He  sweat  quarts 
of  ice  water,  his  collar  was  choking  him.  And 
the  worse  he  looked  the  more  those  cruel  peo- 
ple laughed.  Finally  when  they  had  laughed 
themselves  out  of  breath,  he  faltered  out  a 
word — he  was  game,  all  right.  The  company 
gave  heed.  He  said: 

"I — g-guess  you  folks  knew  I  c-couldn't," 
gulp,  "make  a  sp-speech.  That's  the  reason 
you  called  on  me.  I  can  always  remember 
every  part  of  a  story  except  its  point,  and  I 
never  sing  except  for  spite.  But  I  wanted  to 
rn-make  good  this  one  t-t-time,  so  I  c-came. 
I  read  in  a  book  some  time  ago  that  you  could 
learn  fleas  to  d-do  things.  I  had  a  flea  that  I 
had  been  w-wondering  about  for  a  good 
w-while — wondering  if  there  was  anything 
else  he  could  do  besides  what  he  did  most  of 
the  t-time.  So  I  tried  to  learn  him  and  it  was 
easier  than  I  thought.  And  I  brought  him 

68 


THE  WRONG  HENRY 

with  me  tonight,  and  if  you  don't  care,  I'll  have 
him  d-do  some  things." 

Loud  applause  of  astonishment  and  pleas- 
ure. "Come  on  with  the  trained  flea — why 
he's  actually  going  to  make  good!" 

The  man  reached  down  into  his  vest-pocket 
and  brought  out  a  small,  paste-board  pill-box 
— a  round  one,  of  the  sort  they  give  you  when 
you  buy  a  quarter's  worth  of  quinine  pills. 
He  put  the  box  down  on  the  table  in  the  middle, 
where  they  had  smoothed  off  a  place  among 
the  smilax  for  him.  Then  he  removed  the 
lid  and  said: 

"Jump  out,  Henry!" 

Henry  jumped  right  out.  The  box  was 
taken  away,  and  the  owner  and  trainer  said: 

"Henry,  lie  down  and  roll  over." 

Henry  did  so,  as  nicely  as  any  trained 
poodle  that  ever  went  on  the  stage  at  a  pony 
show.  Everybody  applauded  wildly.  Won- 
derful! The  next  order  was: 

"Henry,  play  dead!" 
69 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

Henry  obeyed.  He  played  so  dead  that 
even  his  toe-nails  were  negligee.  He  was  the 
most  satisfactorily  dead-looking  flea  you  ever 
saw.  The  crowd  marveled  still  more  and  en- 
cored heartily. 

"Jump  backward,  Henry!" 

Henry  jumped  two  or  three  feet  backward. 
Most  astonishing  thing  they  had  ever  seen. 
Almost  unbelievable  that  a  flea  of  that  size 
could  jump  so  far. 

"Jump  forward,  Henry!" 

This  time  he  spoke  harshly  to  Henry,  which 
was  a  foolish  thing  to  do.  Henry  was  edu- 
cated, had  an  artistic  temperament — was  quite 
a  nervous  flea,  in  fact.  Speaking  sharply  to 
him  was  a  dangerous  undertaking.  Henry 
was  startled.  He  jumped  further  than  he  had 
meant  to  do.  He  lit  on  the  neck  of  a  lady 
there  who  had  on  one  of  those  one-more-strug- 
gle-and-I-am-free  dresses. 

Now  this  wasn't  the  case  of  the  wicked  flea 
and  no  man  pursueth.  Henry  was  a  wicked 

70 


THE  WRONG  HENRY 

flea,  all  right,  but  several  men  pursued  him. 
They  finally  cornered  and  recaptured  him  and 
brought  him  back  to  the  place  of  performance. 
The  owner  and  trainer  resumed  the  show.  He 
put  his  thumb  and  forefinger,  formed  into  a 
ring,  in  front  of  Henry  and  said: 

"Jump  through  there,  sir!" 

Henry  didn't  move. 

"Henry!  Did  you  hear  me?  Jump 
through  there,  I  say!" 

Henry  remained  motionless. 

"Henry,  for  the  third  and  last  time  I  tell 
you  to  jump  through  there!" 

Henry  was  still  grossly  disobedient. 

What  to  do?  Henry  had  disobeyed  him; 
had  defied  him  publicly ;  had  put  him  to  shame 
before  strangers.  He  must  not  be  allowed  to 
get  away  with  this.  He  must  be  disciplined. 
But  first,  before  punishment,  justice  must  be 
assured.  "Never  punish  in  anger,"  you  know. 
Maybe  Henry  had  a  reason  not  apparent  on 
the  surface.  The  owner  and  trainer  stooped 

71 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

down,  examined  Henry  from  every  point  of 
the  compass,  and  then  straightened  up  and  said, 
with  mingled  relief  and  accusation  in  his  face : 
"I  beg  your  pardon,  Madam!  That  isn't  my 
Henry !" 

CHIU>HOOD'S  HUMOR 

Enough  of  the  rebounding  humor!  There 
are  other  kinds.  The  humor  of  childhood  de- 
serves special  mention  because  it  is  so  differ- 
ent from  all  other  kinds.  It  includes  a  fresh 
viewpoint  of  life — a  complete  originality  that 
is  pretty  thoroughly  lacking  from  the  other 
kinds.  An  instance  of  that  is  in  the  story  of 
the  little  boy  who  had  been  away  from  home 
visiting  for  a  good  while,  and  his  mother  was 
just  starved  to  see  him.  When  he  came  home 
he  was  full  of  information  about  his  visit  at 
Auntie's.  Among  other  things  he  told  of  a 
very  bad  boy  who  lived  next  door  to  his  kins- 
woman's. 

"An5  one  day,"  said  John,  "that  bad  boy  hit 
72 


CHILDHOOD'S  HUMOR 

me  wif  a  chunk  o'  coal,  an'  he  hurt  me,  too,  he 
did!"  John  sniveled  at  the  memory  of  it. 

"He  did!    Well,  of  all  things !" 

"Yes,  he  did!  But  I  got  even  with  him,  all- 
righty,  allrighty!" 

"How  did  you  do  it?" 

"I  hit  him  wif  a  rock  the  day  before!" 

Children  are  naturally  honest,  until  the 
world  has  corrupted  them — that  is,  most  of 
them  are.  This  one  was,  who  told  me  about  a 
common  malady  that  troubled  him : 

THE  FIDGETS 

I'm  got  th'  fidgets ;  when  I  go  t'  bed 

(I  sleep  wif  Billy),  I  ist  scratch  my  head 

An5  squirm  around  an'  git  th'  covers  mixed 

Till  Billy  says,  "Aw,  goo'ness  sakes!     Git  fixed." 

An'  when  I  try  t'  tell  him  how  it  was, 

He  says,  "Aw,  I'll  git  up  an'  slap  your  jaws !" 

I  wake  up  in  th'  night  most  froze  t'  deff 
An'  hear  Bill  sayin'  fings  nunder  his  breff. 
'Cause  somehow  all  th'  cover's  on  th'  floor, 
An'  Bill  says  he  won't  sleep  wif  me  no  more — 

73 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

Dogged  if  he  will;  an'  when  he  swears  that  way, 
I  f reaten  'at  I'll  tell  our  ma  next  day ! 

Nen  Billy  he  ist  helps  me  snuggle  down 

An'  tells  me  I'll  be  nicest  boy  in  town 

5F  I  shouldn't  tell,  an'  when  I  say  "I  won't,'* 

He  grits  'is  teef  an'  says  "You  better  don't !" 

If  they's  a  fidget  doctor  anywhere 

I'm  goin'  t'  see  him,  if  my  ma  don't  care. 

But  as  they  grow  older,  my,  how  guile 
creeps  in!  The  average  grownup  girl's  favor- 
ite indoor  sport  is  making  some  male  being  be- 
lieve she  believes  what  he  tells  her.  Just  like 
this  one: 

CROSSED  FINGERS 

He  said  that  her  kiss  was  the  first  he  had  had; 

But  his  fingers  were  crossed. 
He'd  kissed  but  his  mother,  when  he  was  a  lad; 

But  his  fingers  were  crossed. 
He  vowed  that  not  only  he'd  ne'er  had  a  taste 
Of  rich,  ruby  lips,  but  that  no  other  waist 
Had  ever  been  clasped  in  his  arms ;  then  in  haste 

His  two  fingers  he  crossed. 
74 


CHILDHOOD'S  HUMOR 

The  ring  that  he  gave  her — he'd  bought  it  that  day. 

But  his  fingers  were  crossed. 
No  previous  maiden  had  worn  it — nay,  nay ! 

But  his  fingers  were  crossed. 
And  never,  so  long  as  his  life  should  endure, 
Could  eye,  lip  or  cheek  of  another  maid  lure. — 
He  knew  it !     Past  every  doubt  he  was  sure. 

But  his  fingers  were  crossed. 

She  listened  to  all  of  this  slush  he  had  said 

While  his  fingers  were  crossed; 
She  laid  on  his  bosom  her  wise  little  head 

While  his  fingers  were  crossed; 

Then  whispered,  so  low  that  that  famed  "little  bird" 
Who  peddles  sweet  secrets  could  never  have  heard, 
As  she  said:  "O,  my  boy,  I  believe  every  word!" 

But  her  fingers  were  crossed. 

Now  I  am  going  to  do  a  very  mean  and  con- 
temptible thing.  I  am  going  to  take  advan- 
tage of  the  fact  that  you  are  not  allowed  to 
talk  back,  and  tell  you  something  about  a  child 
of  my  own.  They  say  "Heaven  lies  about  us 
in  our  infancy."  So  do  our  parents  lie  about 
us,  then  and  later.  But  this  I  am  about  to 

75 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

tell  you  is  the  truth.  It  illustrates  the  abso- 
lutely unique  child  viewpoint — the  unexpected 
one.  I  use  my  own  boy,  not  because  he  is 
brighter  than  yours  (though  of  course  he  is) 
but  because  I  know  him  more  intimately  than 
I  know  your  boy. 

This  little  fellow  of  mine  is  a  fiend  for  land- 
turtles  or  terrapins.  He  finds  them  in  the 
woods  and  usually  has  one  or  two  of  them 
around  the  place.  The  mechanism  of  the 
brutes  is  interesting  to  him.  He  admires  their 
construction — even  envies  them,  when  spank- 
ing time  is  due.  One  time  when  he  was  a  bit 
past  three  years  old,  some  of  the  folks  in  our 
house  were  sick.  The  doctor  not  only  didn't 
know  what  was  the  matter  with  them — a  condi- 
tion to  which  we  were  accustomed — but  he  ad- 
mitted his  ignorance,  which  was  entirely  new  to 
us.  We  were  alarmed  about  him  too.  He 
would  doctor  them  for  glanders  one  day  and 
botts  the  next,  and  was  intending  to  go  through 
his  entire  disease  list,  so  that  if  they  didn't  get 

76 


CHILDHOOD'S  HUMOR 

well  it  would  be  their  fault  and  not  his.  We 
were  afraid  his  library  would  last  longer  than 
the  folks — afraid  his  patience  would  outlast 
his  patients.  And  the  burden  of  our  monoto- 
nous conversation  through  these  troublous  days 
was  "Wonder  what  is  the  matter  with  'em!" 
The  lad  grew  weary  of  this  vain  repetition,  and 
one  day  he  looked  up  at  me  and  said: 

"Father,  do  you  know  what  I'm  going  to 
be  when  I  grow  up?" 

"Indeed,  I  don't,"  I  said  without  much  en- 
thusiasm. 

"I'm  going  to  be  a  turtle." 

"A  turtle!    What  for?" 

"So  when  I  get  anything  the  matter  wif  me 
I  can  pull  my  head  inside  an'  look  around  and 
see  what  it  is,  myself." 

But  these  little  fellows  give  us  a  great  many 
things  that  are  not  jokes.  They  preach  about 
the  clearest  little  sermons,  unconsciously,  that 
may  be  imagined.  My  children  do,  and  so  do 
yours  if  you  get  the  full  significance  of  their 

77 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

meaning.  Once  my  lad  came  home  from  the 
open-air  kindergarten  he  was  attending.  I 
rescued  him  from  it  afterward.  After  I  had 
gone  once  and  watched  the  manly  shame  with 
which  he  toiled  through  the  "Do  you  know  the 
muf-fin  man"  drool,  I  took  pity  on  him  and  let 
him  dig  fish-bait  for  me.  But  at  that  time  he 
was  doing  time  in  a  kindergarten.  He  found 
me  at  a  most  disagreeable  thing — trying  to 
write  Christmas  humor  for  Judge,  on  a 
hurry-up  order,  on  a  hot  day.  Can  you  imag- 
ine a  worse  job  than  trying  to  write  stuff  about 
snow  and  icicles  and  sleigh-bells  when  the  per- 
spiration is  standing  out  on  your  face  like 
sweat?  I  can't! 

He  came  in  and  shoved  his  head  under  my 
arm  as  if  I  had  nothing  else  to  do  but  visit  with 
him.  And  say!  Any  of  you  who  has  a  child 
dependent  upon  him  for  the  principal  share  of 
its  guidance  and  influence,  has  no  other  busi- 
ness half  so  important  as  that.  No  matter 
what  business  may  be  printed  after  your  name 

78 


CHILDHOOD'S  HUMOR 

in  the  telephone  directory,  that  isn't  your  real 
business,  if  you  have  a  child.  The  other  busi- 
ness is  your  side  line  and  the  child  is  your  main 
job.  Bringing  up  the  next  generation  is  the 
biggest  job  this  generation  has  .  .  .  Well,  he 
started  telling  me  things  about  his  day  at 
school.  He  told  me  all  he  knew  and  I  told  him 
all  I  knew.  It  didn't  take  either  of  us  long. 
Then  he  happened  to  think  of  something  he  be- 
lieved was  more  interesting  than  me,  and  went 
to  the  other  thing.  I  went  on  trying  to  write 
the  stuff  I  had  been  writing  before  he  came 
in,  but  I  couldn't.  Something  the  boy  had 
brought  into  the  room — something  intangible, 
invisible,  but  exceedingly  real — had  got  be- 
tween me  and  that  machine.  I  finally  had  to 
take  out  the  sheet  of  paper  I  was  using  and 
insert  a  fresh  one,  and  then  I  watched  with 
surprise  while  my  hands  wrote  this: 


79 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

AFTER  SCHOOL 

When  home  from  school's  long  day  he  drifts 
And  to  my  gaze  his  fresh  face  lifts, 
I  read  the  tale  of  all  the  joys 
And  sorrows  that  are  every  boy's — 
I  knew  them  once.     I  feel  them  yet, 
Through  later  living's  deeper  fret. 
But  still  I  hold  him  close,  and  say 
"Son,  tell  me  all  about  your  day." 

He  tells  me — whimpering  o'er  each  grief, 

And  laughing  next  in  swift  relief: 

The  big,  bad  boy  who  hid  his  hat ; 

The  girl  who  slipped  from  where  she  sat, 

To  meet  with  Teacher's  well-earned  frown; 

And  how  the  littlest  boy  fell  down! 

I  list — not  that  I  do  not  know, 

But  only  that  I  love  him  so. 

When,  at  life's  troublous  school  day's  close, 
Each  world-worn  pupil  homeward  goes, 
Straight  to  the  Father's  eyes  we'll  raise 
Our  own,  prepared  for  blame  or  praise. 
He'll  slip  an  arm  around,  and  say: 
"Child,  tell  me  all  about  your  day." 
Not  that  Our  Father  does  not  know, 
But  only  that  He  loves  us  so. 
80 


CHILDHOOD'S  HUMOR 

And  we  parents  have  so  many  funny  notions 
that  we  don't  know  are  funny  because  we  take 
ourselves  so  seriously.  We  are  all  charter 
members,  by  birth,  of  the  A.  O.  S.  K. — Ancient 
Order  of  Self-Kidders.  We  believe  solemnly 
that  we  are  guiding  the  destinies  of  our  chil- 
dren. Well,  we  ought  at  least  to  try  to  be. 
But  when  you  get  right  down  to  the  last  analy- 
sis, it  is  the  other  way  about.  What  is  the  most 
potent  earthly  influence  in  keeping  parents 
as  nearly  straight  as  they  really  do  keep? 
The  fear  of  such  harm  as  might  come  to  their 
children  through  parental  wrong-doing  or 
wrong  thinking.  So  it  is,  after  all,  the  child 
who  looks  after  the  parents.  And  the  only 
parents  who  can't  be  kept  straight  by  means 
of  their  feeling  of  responsibility  for  their  chil- 
dren, are  the  ones  who  don't  want  to  be  kept 
straight. 

That  boy  of  mine  takes  care  of  me,  wher- 
ever I  am.  He  doesn't  know  it,  and  won't 
know  it  till  he  has  a  boy  of  his  own  taking  care 

81 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

of  him.  He  thinks  I  am  the  care-taker. 
Someday  when  he  learns  better,  he  will  under- 
stand for  the  first  time  this  bit  that  I  evolved 
one  night  at  Utica,  N.  Y.,  when  I  left  a  late 
train  and  got  to  a  comfortable  but  lonely  room 
after  midnight: 

WHEN  DAD'S  AWAY 

Bud,  when  your  dad  is  milling  'round  the  map, 
He's  always  homesick  for  a  certain  chap 
Whose  star-eyed  welcome  waits  for  him  always. 
We  miss  each  other  most  at  close  of  day 
When  darkness  settles  'round  us,  and  we  yearn 
Each  for  the  far-off  time  of  my  return. 

And  always — son,  don't  tell  this  to  a  soul ! — 

When  o'er  the  rails  my  train  has  ceased  to  roll 

And  I  am  ushered  to  my  hotel  room 

With  ghastly  splendor  and  its  tawdry  gloom, 

When  on  the  pillow  I  have  laid  my  head, 

I  say,  "Come,  Bud,  it's  time  our  prayer  was  said." 

As  if  you  were  tucked  up  beside  me  there 
I  say  the  old,  familiar  bed-time  prayer 
I  taught  to  you,  and  that  we  never  miss 

82 


CHILDHOOD'S  HUMOR 

When  I'm  at  home  to  get  my  goodnight  kiss. 
Somehow  I  feel  you  snuggling  to  me  then, 
And  next  I  know,  the  day  has  come  again ! 

The  new,  fresh  viewpoint  of  life  is  the  stock 
in  trade  of  children,  and  they  manage  to  im- 
part it  to  others. 

A  grammar  class  in  a  Missouri  school  was 
agonizing  over  conjunctions  one  day.  All 
grammar  classes  are  tragic.  The  teacher  said : 

"Some  one  in  the  class  please  give  me  a  sen- 
tence containing  a  conjunction,  pick  out  the 
conjunction  and  tell  what  it  connects." 

After  considerable  silence  one  boy,  usually 
stupid  and  unanswering,  gave  this: 

"The  goat  will  butt  the  boy.  Butt  is  a  con- 
junction, connecting  the  goat  and  the  boy." 

At  Logan,  Ohio,  a  little  girl  ran  excitedly 
across  the  street  and  said  to  a  friendly  neigh- 
bor: 

"Oh,  Auntie,  we've  got  the  longest  cat  at 
our  house  we  ever  had!" 

"The  longest  cat!     How  long  is  it?" 
83 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

"Ever  since  last  summer!" 

It  was  a  little  school  boy  who,  when  asked 
to  give  a  sentence  containing  the  word  "not- 
withstanding," wrote 

"The  man's  trousers  were  worn  out,  not  with 
standing." 

THE  FOREIGNER 

How  can  we  even  pretend  to  treat  of  humor 
and  assume  to  classify  it,  without  speaking  of 
the  humor  of  the  foreigner?  He  brings  with 
him  not  only  an  inadequate  knowledge  of  this 
mysterious  and  rule-less  language  of  ours,  but 
he  also  brings  a  mental  twist  we  natives  do  not 
have. 

At  Dixon,  111.,  there  lived  a  German  who  had 
a  son  of  whom  he  was  inordinately  fond. 
George  was  the  Baldwin  apple  of  his  right  eye. 
One  day  the  glad  tidings  came  that  George, 
who  had  been  away  for  a  good  while,  was  re- 
turning the  next  day.  The  old  man  was 

84 


THE  FOREIGNER 

tickled  almost  to  death  over  the  news,  and 
couldn't  keep  it  to  himself.  Seeing  a  bosom 
friend  of  George's  boyhood  days  he  yelled 
across  the  street: 

"Goot  morgen!     Seen  Yorge  yet?" 

"No.     Is  he  home?" 

"Comin'  tomorrow!" 

And  here  is  some  especially  ancient  history 
that  is  used  because  illustrative. 

There  was  another  German — this  one  was  a 
German  by  marriage.  Yes,  that  is  right. 
He  was  a  German  because  each  of  his  parents 
had  married  a  German.  I  think  that  makes  it 
all  right.  Anyway  this  German  by  marriage 
had  had  a  telephone — then  a  new  thing — placed 
in  his  office.  He  practiced  with  that  machine 
until  he  knew  far  more  about  it  than  Edison  or 
Bell  had  ever  even  dreamed.  But  pride  goeth 
before  an  early  fall  and  a  hard  winter,  as  some- 
body never  said  before.  One  day  when  the  old 
man  was  busy,  his  hired  man  of  all  work  came 

85 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

to  the  office  to  tell  him  there  was  no  feed  in  the 
stable  for  the  horse.  The  old  man  was  right 
peeved  about  it,  and  he  said: 

"Vat  iss !  V'y  you  dondt  got  some  feed  al- 
ready yet?" 

"I  don't  know,  boss.  Somebody  must  'a' 
been  shovelin'  it  in  while  I  was  off.  But  they 
ain't  none." 

"Huh!  Veil,  I  call  up  some  feedt.  You 
vatch  how  I  done  it." 

"No,  boss,  I  have  to  go  around  on  that 
street,  and  I'll  take  home  enough  for  noon, 
and  order  the  rest." 

"Nein!  Vat  I  got  diss  delephone  for,  huh! 
I  call  me  up  some  feedt." 

Taking  down  the  receiver,  he  said: 

"Hello!  Hello!  .  .  .  Hel-lol!  Are  you 
home?  Hello!  HEL-lo!  O!  You're  dere, 
are  you?  Aindt  dot  nice!  I'm  so  gladt  you 
vas  home  de  same  day  vot  I  call  you.  All 
aright.  I  do  der  dalking  mineself.  Giff  me 
von  hundert  sefenty-fife,  der  feedt  shtore. 

86 


THE  FOREIGNER 

.  .  .  No,  von  hundert — no,  nein,  nein!  Von 
hundert  undt — geben  sie  meer  ein  hundert 
sebentzig — giff  me  der  feedt  shtore!  Vot! 
Vot's  dot?  Der  delephone  gompany  dondt 
gif  avay  feedt-shtores  mit  efery  call?  My,  my, 
vot  a  shmardt  gerrel !  Gif  me  den — I  vant  do 
talk  mit  der  feedt  shtore.  Iss  dot  allaright — 
huh?  ...  V-O-T!!  Der  feedt  shtore  can't 
talk,  eh !  Goodtness  me  vat  a  shmart  gerrel  it 
iss !  Veil,  I  vant  to  talk  mit  somebody  by  der 
feedt  shtore,  den.  Iss  dot  allaright?  ...  So! 
I'm  so  gladt  you  like  it.  I  chust  dalk  to  make 
you  happiness.  Veil — O,  shut  up !  ...  Oh — 
iss  dot  der  feedt  shtore!  Oxcuse  please!  I 
dink  all  der  time  idt  vas  central.  All  right. 
I  don't  vant  der  feedt  shtore  to  shut  up.  I 
vant  it  to  shtay  open  vile  I  got  some  feedt. 
Yess — aindt  it  funny!  Veil,  we  get  our  little 
choke.  I  vant  you  to  send  me  fife  bale  of 
shelled  oats  undt  von  bushel  from  hay.  .  .  . 
No,  I  don't  said  it!  I  say  fife  bushel  from 
shelled  hay  undt  von  bale  of  oats.  .  .  .  No,  no, 

87 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

you  don't  got  it  yet.  I  said  fife  bale  mit  oats 
undt  von  bushel  from  shelled — nein,  nein! 
Efery  time  I  git  it  right  und  efery  time  you 
got  it  wrong!  You  know  vat  I  vandt!  .  .  . 
Vat  iss  dot  brrrrrrr  shtuff!  It  listens  like  a 
voodpecker.  Sendt  me — central,  kept  your 
nose  oudt !  Sendt  dot  shtuff  before  noon  time. 
I've  got  someting  to  do  but  shtand  up  undt 
holler  at  a  hole  in  a  box  on  der  vail.  I  got  oder 
business  yet.  Gootbye — vat!  Who's  it  for? 
Now  you  git  shmart!  It's  for  my  horse." 

"It's  a  long  way  to  Tipperary,"  from  Ger- 
many, but  one  must  go  there  or  elsewhere  in 
Ireland  if  he  wants  the  rarest  and  strangest  of 
wit  and  repartee.  Here  is  a  story  nearly  as 
old  as  the  pyramids.  Here  are  the  ghastly  de- 
tails of  it : 

An  Irishman  had  lived  in  the  country  until 
he  was  twenty-seven  or  twenty-eight  years  old. 
In  fact,  he  had  nearly  got  his  growth.  Nearly 
all  of  his  life  he  had  taken  care  of  horses.  Not 
all  of  his  life,  of  course.  The  first  three  or 

88 


THE  FOREIGNER 

four  years  he  had  been  busy  at  other  things. 
But  after  that  he  had  nothing  to  do  but  take 
care  of  horses.  Life  in  the  country  grew  mo- 
notonous to  him,  and  he  decided  he  knew 
enough  about  horses  to  go  to  town  and  get  a 
job  in  a  livery  stable  and  live  where  things 
were  not  so  deadly  dull.  So  he  threw  up  his 
job — he  wasn't  feeling  well — went  to  town  and 
inquired  at  the  door  of  the  fir^t  livery  stable 
he  found,  to  learn  if  they  needed  a  hostler. 
They  didn't  need  one.  But  the  man  he  in- 
quired of  told  him  they  might  need  one  down 
at  the  railroad  roundhouse.  Now  Mike  didn't 
know  what  on  earth  they  could  do  with  a 
hostler  in  a  railroad  roundhouse,  but  he  wasn't 
going  to  give  up.  He  was  going  to  get  a 
hostler  job  if  one  was  to  be  had.  So  he  went 
down  to  the  railroad  roundhouse  and  asked  of 
the  first  man  he  saw,  if  they  needed  a  hostler 
there.  The  man  looked  a  little  interested 
and  said: 

"Are  you  a  hostler?" 
89 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

"Sure  I'm  a  hostler.    An'  a  good  wan!" 

"Well,  go  in  and  see  Casey,  the  foreman. 
He's  right  in  the  office  there.  He'll  tell  you." 

Now  you  would  never  even  suspect  it,  from 
the  name,  but  Casey  was  Irish  himself.  He 
had  just  been  promoted  to  the  foremanship, 
and  he  was  all  swollen  up  over  it.  He  was 
looking  for  somebody  who  didn't  know  him 
very  well,  to  impress  with  his  greatness.  We 
can  never  impress  anybody  who  knows  us. 
That  is  why  some  of  us  ramble  around  so  much. 
He  gave  this  stranger  a  looking  over  that 
would  have  rattled  a  stone  image,  and  said: 

"We-e-ell,  phwat  do  yez  wahnt!" 

"I  want  a  job  as  hostler,  sorr." 

"As  a  hostler,  eh!  Arre  yez  a  hostler,  an- 
swer me  that!" 

"I  am,  sorr,  an'  a  good  wan." 

"Well,  go  out  in  the  yarrds  an'  bring  in  that 
ingyne." 

Now  this  was  the  first  inkling  Mike  had  had 
as  to  what  the  duties  of  a  roundhouse  hostler 

90 


THE  FOREIGNER 

were.  He  didn't  know  a  single  thing  about 
a  locomotive.  But  he  was  too  Irish  to  give 
up  at  that  stage  of  the  game.  He  was  just 
Irish  enough  to  depend  on  his  mother  wit  to 
get  him  out  of  any  scrape  his  father  ignorance 
got  him  into.  So  he  went  out  and  looked  over 
the  front  end  of  the  mogul  standing  about  sixty 
feet  away,  staring,  with  its  one  eye,  into  the 
roundhouse,  brimful  of  steam  and  popping  off. 
In  fact,  it  was  so  full  that  they  felt  it  really 
ought  to  be  run  in.  He — now  I've  gone  and 
done  him  an  injustice.  I  said  he  didn't  know 
anything  about  a  locomotive,  but  I've  got  to 
apologize.  He  knew  one  solitary  thing  about 
an  engine,  and  that  was  how  to  start  one.  He 
had  fooled  around  a  country  station  enough 
to  see  what  lever  the  man  pulled  to  make  it 
go  away  from  there,  but  he  couldn't  keep  up 
till  they  reached  the  next  station,  so  he  never 
saw  what  was  pulled  to  stop  it.  And  when  all 
you  know  is  how  to  start  something— you're  in 
a — well,  you're  in  an  awful  fix.  So  he  crawled 

91 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

up  into  the  cab  and  looked  over  the  business 
end  of  that  locomotive.  He  saw  all  that  wil- 
derness of  little  dinkusses  sticking  out  there. 
He  would  twist  one  little  dinkus  and  it  would 
fizz  and  burn  his  finger.  He  ran  out  of  fingers 
to  burn  long  before  he  ran  out  of  dinkusses 
to  twist.  But  finally  he  saw  what  he'd  been 
hunting  for — the  throttle  lever,  and  he  went 
and  took  hold  of  it.  He  gripped  it  as  hard 
as  he  could,  he  shut  his  eyes  as  tight  as  he 
could,  he  braced  himself  as  firmly  as  he  could, 
pulled  as  quick  as  he  could,  and  the  locomotive 
went  into  the  roundhouse  like  that!  He 
saw  that  if  he  didn't  do  something  pretty 
quickly  that  he  and  that  locomotive  were 
going  through  a  two-foot  brick  wall  to- 
gether. He  didn't  care  about  the  locomotive 
or  the  brick  wall — they  weren't  his,  but  he 
didn't  want  to  hurt  himself.  *  So  he  got  busy 
and  by  pure  Irish  luck  and  rapid  fumbling  he 
managed  to  grab  the  reverse  lever — the  John- 
son bar — just  in  time,  and  the  locomotive 

92 


THE  FOREIGNER 

backed  out  like  that!  He  knew  now  how 
to  make  her  go  back  and  forth  right  quick  but 
he  didn't  know  how  to  make  her  slow  down 
and  stop.  And  in  the  meantime — and  it 
was  a  mean  time! — he  kept  her  going  back 
and  forth  like  the  shuttle  of  a  sewing  machine. 
When  he  finally  did  get  her  quieted  down, 
she  was  standing  where  he  first  found  her.  still 
popping  off. 

Casey  came  out,  madder  than  a  hornet,  and 
yelled : 

"Why  in  the  diwle  don't  you  bring  in  that 
in-gyne  as  I  told  yez  to!" 

"Bring  in  nawthin'!"  said  Mike.  "I  had  it 
in  there  six  times  an*  yez  wouldn't  shut  th' 
dure!" 

Mike's  typical  Irish  answer  was  like  a  breath 
of  the  owld  sod  and  the  stirabout  pot  to  Casey, 
so  his  anger  disappeared.  And  though  he 
knew  Mike  wasn't  worth  fifteen  cents  a  century 
to  the  company,  he  gave  him  a  job. 

About  two  weeks  later — though  the  break- 
93 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

age  account  of  the  roundhouse  would  make  you 
think  it  was  a  year — there  was  a  vacancy  along 
the  line  where,  according  to  law,  they  had  to 
keep  something  that  looked  like  a  man,  at  a 
distance.  The  human  remnant  they  had  kept 
there  was  ill  one  day  and  a  man  had  to  be  sent 
out  or  a  fine  be  paid.  So  they  picked  up  Mike 
and  sent  him  out  there  on  a  handcar.  Mike 
was  a  proud  chap !  Working  for  the  company 
less  than  a  month,  and  now  a  station  agent! 
He  sat  around  all  forenoon  feeling  proud, 
and  all  afternoon  feeling  foolish.  Nothing 
stopped  there  and  he  wasn't  getting  to  sass  the 
public  like  a  regular  station  agent.  It  grav- 
eled him.  Along  toward  night,  after  he  had 
been  feeling  like  a  cipher  with  the  rim  rubbed 
out  about  as  long  as  he  could  stand  it,  he  looked 
at  his  dollar  watch  and  saw  he  had  only  half  an 
hour  more  to  be  agent,  and  not  an  official  or 
officious  act  to  his  credit  for  the  entire  day! 
It  was  unbearable.  Just  then  he  heard  the 
fast  express  coming  in  the  distance.  It  should 

94 


THE  FOREIGNER 

have  been  along  hours  before.  It  was  hitting 
the  high  spots  making  up  every  possible  split 
second,  with  a  clear  right  of  way,  for  the  next 
junction  where  an  important  connection  was 
to  be  made.  But  that  didn't  bother  Mike  for  a 
single  minute.  It  was  his  chance,  and  he  took 
it  like  a  little  man.  Dusk  was  coming  on,  so 
he  rushed  into  his  shack,  lighted  his  red  lan- 
tern, then  rushed  back  out  and  stood  between 
the  rails.  The  engineer  of  this  lightning  ex- 
press couldn't  see  this  man  with  the  red  lan- 
tern until  he  rounded  a  high  bluff  at  a  curve 
less  than  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away.  Then  he 
saw  it  and  was  scared  stiff.  Could  he  stop  her 
in  time?  He  could  try!  He  used  all  the 
sand  in  the  box.  He  threw  in  the  reverse,  the 
emergency — everything  he  could  to  stop  her 
quickly.  The  train  bounced  and  buck-jumped 
and  skated  and  sent  up  sparks  from  the  driv- 
ers and  blazes  from  the  journals  for  fifty  yards 
before  she  stopped  right  at  that  Irishman's 
toes.  The  engineer  leaped  out  and  ran  for- 

95 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

ward,  white  of  face  and  trembling  of  legs  and 
said: 

"In  heaven's  name,  what's  wrong?" 

"Yez  is  la-ate,"  said  Mike  shrewdly. 
"Phwat's  ka-apin'  yez?" 

And  can  we  let  the  dear  old  English  alone 
when  we  talk  of  foreign  humor?  I  can't  resist 
the  temptation  to  tell  you  just  one  or  two.  I 
told  that  last  story — of  the  Irishman  stopping 
a  train — to  a  typical  Englishman,  and  he  said, 
in  patient  surprise,  "Well,  me  good  man,  but 
wasn't  the  bloomin'  blighter  still  further 
del'ying  the  train?" 

And  a  few  years  ago  an  English  girl  came 
to  this  country  to  study  the  American  joke. 
She  had  heard  of  the  trouble  her  countrymen 
had  had  with  it,  and  she  was  going  to  learn  to 
take  one  apart  and  put  it  together  again  and 
see  wherein  the  mystery  lay.  So  she  started 
in — this  was  at  the  big  chautauqua  at  Chau- 
tauqua  Lake — by  having  everyone  who  sprung 
a  jest  in  her  presence  explain  it  to  her! 

96 


THE  FOREIGNER 

Wasn't  that  hilarious !  Wasn't  that  the  cheer- 
ful chore!  If  there  is  anything  hurts  worse 
than  explaining  a  joke,  I  want  always  to  be 
spared  that  worse  pain.  I  don't  think  I  could 
live  through  it.  But  that's  what  she  did,  and 
it  wasn't  long  until  nobody  would  tell  a  joke 
without  putting  out  sentinels  while  the  story 
was  told,  and  taking  to  the  woods  afterward. 
They  were  afraid  the  girl  might  come  along 
for  her  diagram.  Yet  toward  the  end  of  the 
summer  somebody  sprung  a  joke  right  where 
that  girl  could  hear  it!  Awful  thing  to  do. 
Awful  joke,  for  that  matter.  About  the  old- 
est joke  there  is.  It  was  that  silly  old  conun- 
drum which  asks  "'How  do  you  make  a  Maltese 
cross?"  And  the  answer  is,  "You  pull  its 
tail."  Somebody  on  one  side  of  the  table 
asked  it  and  some  other  bright  person  answered 
it  with  "You  pull  its  tail."  Several  of  those 
present  smiled.  Not  that  they  were  amused. 
No  chance.  They  simply  wished  to  show  re- 
spect for  old  age.  But  the  English  girl  didn't 

97 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

smile  a  bit.  She  looked  like  the  second  plume 
on  a  hearse.  Finally  she  lifted  her  eyes  from 
her  plate  and  said : 

"Well,  of  cawse  it's  because  I'm  English  and 
all  that,  but  r'ally  I  cawn't  see  any  similarity 
between  a  Maltese  cross  and  a  pullet's  tail." 

THE  PUZZLED  PORKERS 

You  have  noted  what  an  effective  element 
surprise  is,  in  humor.  The  little  story  I  am 
going  to  tell  you  now  has  that  element.  To 
those  of  you  who  read  this  incident  when  I  first 
promulgated  it  years  ago,  or  who  have  heard 
others  tell  it,  or  heard  the  phonograph  record 
Ed  Whitney  made  of  it,  with  credit  to  myself, 
the  element  of  surprise  still  remains — surprise 
that  I  should  tell  it  at  all.  But  it  best  illus- 
trates that  class  of  humor,  that's  all: 

One  time  a  friend  of  mine  was  going  through 
the  woods  in  the  part  of  Arkansas  where  they 
let  their  hogs  run  in  the  woods.  That  wasn't 
the  way  my  friend  came  to  be  loose  in  those 

98 


THE  PUZZLED  PORKERS 

woods.  He  was  no  hog.  While  traveling 
along  his  attention  was  attracted  by  the  strange 
behavior  of  a  covey  of  razorbacks  that  he  had 
flushed  from  the  brush. 

The  razorback,  as  you  may  know,  is  a  pe- 
culiar animal,  related  to  the  hog  but  more 
closely  related  to  the  antelope.  It  is  perfectly 
proper  to  eat  razorback  meat  on  fast  days,  for 
he  is  the  fastest  animal  known.  He  never 
looks  fat,  no  matter  how  fleshy  he  is.  He  al- 
ways looks  like  a  grey-hound  that  had  starved 
to  death.  The  only  way  you  can  tell  a  fat  one 
from  a  lean  one  is  to  pick  it  up  by  the  ears, 
which  is  its  normal  balancing  point,  the  snout 
and  the  tonneau  of  said  animal  being  of  exactly 
the  same  length.  If  the  front  end  goes  down, 
he  is  lean.  If  it  goes  up,  he  is  ready  for  the 
butcher. 

Well,  this  friend  of  mine  noticed  that  these 
razorbacks — hollow-ground,  and  self -stropping 
razor-backs — were  acting  peculiarly.  They 
would  stick  their  heads  up  in  the  air,  curl  their 

99 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

tails  so  tight  they  couldn't  get  their  hind  feet 
to  the  ground,  listen  excitedly  for  a  few  min- 
utes, then  run  violently  in  one  direction  for  a 
hundred  yards  or  so,  stop,  letting  ears  and 
tail  become  negligee  again,  and  repeat  the 
hopeful  stuff. 

The  man  watched  them  in  blank  amazement 
until  he  began  to  feel  kind  of  funny  himself. 
He  was  afraid  this  was  catching,  so  he  crossed 
his  fingers  and  hurried  on. 

A  quarter  of  a  mile  further,  he  came  upon  an 
old  man  sitting  on  an  inverted  nail-keg  beside 
a  cabin  door,  combing  his  whiskers  with  his 
fingers. 

"Morning!"  said  my  friend. 

"Mornin',"  whispered  the  old  man. 

"You  live  here?" 

"Reckon  I  do,"  came  the  whisper. 

"Lived  here  all  your  life?" 

"Not  yit." 

"Are  those  your  hogs  back  there  in  the 
woods?" 

100 


NONSENSE 

"Reckon  they  air,"  again  whispered  the  old 
gentleman. 

"Well,  what  on  earth  makes  'em  act  that 
way?  They  stick  their  heads  up  in  the  air,  run 
about  a  hundred  yards,  turn  and  run  some 
other  way,  and  keep  that  up  all  the  time. 
They're  running  their  fool  selves  to  death. 
What's  the  matter  with  'em?" 

"Y'see,  stranger,"  rasped  the  old  man  in 
his  bronchial  whisper,  "lately  th'  acorns  has 
been  a-gittin'  skaise,  an'  I  been  a-feedin'  'em 
some  cawn.  Las'  week  I  los'  my  voice  an'  tuk 
t'  callin'  'em  by  poundin'  on  a  tree  with  a  stick, 
an'  now  them  danged  woodpeckers  has  got'  em 
crazy." 

NONSENSE 

Then  there  is  the  humor  of — wait  a  minute: 
I  want  to  tell  you  folks  something,  in  confi- 
dence. Shh!  I  wasn't  always  the  fat,  chubby 
thing  you  see  me  now.  I  was  once  almost 
slender.  The  first  steady  job  I  ever  had  was 

101 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

that  of  understudy  to  the  living  skeleton  in  a 
sideshow — the  ossified  man.  But  I  saw  what 
a  hard  life  he  lived  and  I  gave  it  up.  I  heard 
afterward  that  he  died — hard.  And  just  to 
show  you  what  silly  things  love  makes  people 
do,  how  reason  goes  out  the  window  when  love 
comes  in  the  front  door,  the  ossified  man  was 
married  to  the  fat  lady!  You  never  saw  such 
a  looking  pair.  They  looked  like  a  drum  and 
a  fife  when  they  went  out  together.  She  was  so 
embonpoint,  as  we  say  in  Paris,  that  when  her 
husband  wasn't  around  to  help  dress  her,  she 
had  to  waddle  into  the  animal  tent  to  let  the 
sacred  cow  hook  her  up  the  back!  But  that 
was  all  before  I  went  into  the  furniture  busi- 
ness— making  one-night  stands  under  a  bureau. 
I  didn't  have  as  much  to  live  on  then  as  I've  had 
since.  I  used  to  have  to  live  on  twenty  cents  a 
day.  Maybe  it  might  be  interesting  to  you 
to  know  how  this  was  done.  You  never  know 
how  prices  are  going  up.  I  bought  a  pint  of 
milk  for  breakfast  and  a  loaf  of  bread  for  din- 

102 


NONSENSE 

ner,  and  ate  them  for  supper.  I  ran  down  ter- 
ribly. I  got  so  I  couldn't  eat  anything  solid 
except  bread,  meat,  vegetables  and  fruit,  and 
I  couldn't  drink  anything  except  liquids.  I 
went  day  after  day  without  a  wink  of  sleep. 
If  it  hadn't  been  for  the  ten  hours  I  got  every 
night,  I  guess  I'd  have  died. 

But  I  got  so  thin  living  along  this  way  that 
the  landlady  of  the  rooming  house  where  I 
stayed — say,  talk  about  your  landladies! 
There  was  a  landlady  de  luxe.  You  know 
some  women  never  sweep  under  the  beds  at 
all — well,  she  swept  everything  under  the  beds. 
Well,  that  landlady  got  worried  about  me  and 
sent  for  a  young  doctor  friend  of  hers  who  had 
no  practice  and  owed  her  money.  He  put  that 
thing  in  my  mouth,  under  my  tongue — you 
know,  that  fountain  pen  or  whatever  it  is  they 
prime  you  with  when  they  are  going  to  try  to 
pump  money  out  of  you — that  all-day  sucker 
with  no  taffy  on  it — he  left  that  there  a  good 
while,  and  when  he  took  it  out,  I  said: 

103 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

"Doc,  what  were  you  doing  then?" 
"I  was  taking  your  temperature." 
"Put  it  right  back!"  I  cried.     "That's  the 
only  temperature  I've  got." 

He  didn't  like  the  looks  of  things  very  much, 
so  he  sent  for  another  young  doctor  friend  of 
his  in  con-sul-ta-tion.  Now  let  me  give  you  a 
word  of  advice — when  a  doctor  comes  and 
looks  at  your  pulse  and  feels  your  tongue  and 
looks  sad  about  it  and  then  sends  for  another 
doctor  "in  con-sul-ta-tion,"  don't  let  that  big 
word  scare  you.  That  doesn't  mean  your 
case  is  serious — it  means  theirs  is.  They 
both  need  the  money.  So  he  sent  for  this 
other  doctor  in  consultation,  and  they  decided 
I  ought  to  go  to  a  hospital  they  knew  about 
that  needed  money  also,  so  they  sent  me  there. 
The  floorwalker  of  the  hospital  thought  of  a 
friend  of  his — he  used  to  be  a  butcher,  but  lost 
his  job  and  is  a  surgeon  now — who  also  needed 
the  money.  This  surgeon,  this  great  cut-up, 
came  and  went  all  up  and  down  my  solar  sys- 

104 


A  POULTRY  HINT 

tern  with  his  fingers  and  knuckles  and  played 
several  selections.  I  said,  "Doc,  what  are  you 
doing?"  He  said,  "I'm  kneading  your  stom- 
ach/' I  said,  "Well,  stop  it.  I  might  need  it 
myself  some  time."  Doc  went  on  and  played 
two  or  three  more  little  things  and  ran  the 
scales  a  few  times,  then  said  sternly : 

"Haven't  you  got  appendicitis?" 

"Search  me,"  I  said. 

Now  he  took  that  slang  of  mine  seriously. 
I  didn't  mean  what  he  meant  at  all!  I've  al- 
ways wondered  if  that  operation  was  success- 
ful. But  it  couldn't  have  been,  for  I  got  well. 
And  his  collector  told  me  about  six  months 
later  when  I  carelessly  let  him  find  me  in,  that 
the  doctor  said  he  had  not  got  a  thing  out  of 
me. 

A  POULTRY  HINT 

Now — I  don't  like  to  end  an  evening  of  fri- 
volity without  feeling  that  I  have  done  at  least 
something  scientific  and  educational.  Some  of 

105 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

you  may  have  the  information  I  am  about  to 
give  you ;  if  so,  your  pardon,  please. 

It  has  to  do  with  the  poultry  business. 

I  was  the  youngest  boy  on  the  farm,  and  you 
know  what  a  fine  job  lot  of  jobs  I  had.  Every 
job  that  nobody  else  would  touch  with  a  ten- 
foot  pole  was  mine.  I  didn't  have  to  apply  for 
it  in  writing  or  undergo  a  civil-service  exami- 
nation, I  simply  got  it.  If  I  didn't  accept  it, 
I  got  something  else.  Among  my  fine  collec- 
tion of  jobs,  one  was  to  be  dry  nurse  to  the 
little  chickens.  When  it  would  rain  in  the 
night  and  the  coops  were  flooded  it  was  my 
business  to  get  up  and  go  out  in  the  wet  grass 
and  bring  in  the  little  soppy  powder-puffs  and 
wrap  them  in  an  old  flannel  petticoat  and  put 
them  under  the  cook-stove  to  dry  out.  And 
do  you  know,  all  this  time  that  I  was  striving  in 
my  weak,  boyish  manner,  to  be  a  good  mother 
to  these  chickens,  I  never  once  had  the  remotest 
idea  whether  those  little  things  were  going  to 
grow  up  regular  voters  or  suffragettes ! 

106 


HUMOR'S  PURPOSE 

Why,  when  I  think  how  easily  I  might  have 
known  all  the  time,  I  blush  for  shame  at  my 
stupidity  and  ignorance. 

Here's  the  way  to  tell:  You  take  the  little 
chicken  that  is  under  suspicion  and  put  it  up  on 
a  chair,  a  bureau,  a  fish-bowl  stand  or  anything 
like  that — even  the  piano  if  you  insist,  and  put 
some  bread  crumbs  in  front  of  it,  in  plain  sight. 
Then  watch !  You  are  about  to  find  out : 

If  he  eats,  it's  a  rooster,  and  if  she  eats,  it's 
a  pullet !  Never  fails ! 

(Rameses  the  Second  is  said  to  have  died 
laughing  at  that  one. ) 

Now  that,  my  friends,  is  the  humor  of  sheer, 
unadulterated,  unvarnished  nonsense.  "A  lit- 
tle nonsense  now  and  then" — the  accent  is  on 
the  "little"  and  the  "now  and  then."  A  steady 
diet  of  it  would  drive  one  to  insanity, 

HUMOR'S  PURPOSE 

Yet  there  is  a  purpose,  far  higher  than  the 
mere  tickle,  in  humor.  A  healthy  laugh  is  a 

107 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

blessing.  But  humor  should  have  a  more  last- 
ing effect.  It  should  teach  us  optimism.  Op- 
timism is  the  opposite  of  pessimism.  Pessi- 
mism— well,  it  is  the  least  sane  of  all  the  human 
characteristics.  Let  me  tell  you  a  story  that 
will  give  you  an  undying  picture  of  the  pessi- 
mist, an  unfading  image  of  him.  It  is  not  a 
pretty  story.  One  cannot  tell  pretty  stories 
about  things  as  inherently  and  incurably  ugly 
as  pessimism. 

One  time  a  man  was  sitting  in  a  basement 
saloon  or  rathskeller,  where  he  had  no  business 
being,  where,  pretty  soon,  nobody  can  be.  He 
had  been  drinking  copiously  for  days,  without 
improving  his  appearance  in  the  least.  He 
had  been  treated  well  and  often.  His  face  was 
stubbly,  his  clothes  were  mussed  and  dirty,  his 
under  lip  sagged  down  like  that  of  a  motherless 
colt.  His  eyes  were  bleary  and  bloodshot,  his 
hat  was  pulled  down  on  one  side,  and  he  was  in 
general  a  loathsome  object.  Sitting  in  his 
chair  on  his  collar  button  with  his  feet  sprawled 

108 


HUMOR'S  PURPOSE 

out  and  snoring,  he  excited  disgust  even  in  the 
bar  flies  who  watched  him.  After  awhile  a 
wicked  look  came  into  the  eyes  of  one  of  the 
loafers.  He  went  to  some  free  lunch  displayed 
on  a  corner  of  the  bar,  and  picked  up  a  brick 
of  limburger  cheese.  Those  who  have  smelled 
limburger  cheese  in  the  full  flush  of  its  man- 
hood, and  have  also  smelled  attar  of  roses, 
never  afterward  get  the  two  confused  in  their 
minds.  They  are  quite  different.  There  is  no 
resemblance  unless  you  are  color-blind  in  the 
nose.  The  loafer  scraped  the  tinfoil  from  one 
face  of  the  cheese  briquette  and  approached  the 
sleeping  beauty.  He  smeared  a  lot  of  the  lim- 
burger on  the  stiffest  bristles  right  under  the 
soak's  nose.  ...  A  change  came  over  the 
spirit  of  his  drunken  dream.  He  stirred.  He 
got  one  eye  partly  open,  fought  away  at  the 
invisible  foe,  but  it  stuck  closer  than  a  brother. 
He  asked,  in  dismay,  of  the  circumambient  and 
tainted  air,  " Ain't  this  awful?" 

Nobody  answered.  .  .  ,  The  drunken  man 
109 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

arose  partly  to  his  feet  and  again  inquired, 
"Ain't  it  awful!"  Still  no  answer.  Then  he 
grew  disgusted  with  such  an  unsympathetic 
bunch  so  lost  to  all  sense  of  community  wel- 
fare, and  wandered  forth  into  the  night,  guard- 
ing himself  against  the  door  that  threatened  to 
hit  him  as  he  went  out.  After  awhile  he  stag- 
gered back,  fell  over  the  sill,  leaned  against  the 
bar,  the  tears  running  down  his  face,  and 
sobbed : 

" Ain't  it  jest  awful  I" 

"Ain't  what  awful?"  asked  somebody. 

"The  whole  world  stinks!" 

There  is  your  pessimist,  true  to  the  life! 
It  is  not  a  cartoon  or  a  caricature — it  is  a  life- 
size  photograph.  He  thinks  the  world  is  all 
wrong  when,  if  he  would  look  after  his  own 
part  of  the  thing  and  do  his  own  duty  and  keep 
himself  decent,  the  world  wouldn't  seem  half  so 
odorous  to  him  or  to  those  he  meets. 

And  optimism — that  is  a  word  we  don't  un- 
derstand well  enough.  It  means  merely  hope- 

110 


HUMOR'S  PURPOSE 

fulness  and  pluck  and  patience.  There  is  an 
optimism  that  shines  through  the  gentle  tear 
as  well  as  that  which  has  laughter  in  it.  Here  is 
a  memory  of  my  own  childhood  in  the  country 
— it  has  optimism  in  it,  though  no  boisterous 
hilarity : 

WAITING 

On  summer  Saturday's  long  afternoon 

I  used  to  climb,  barefoot,  one  thronelike  knoll, 
Soliloquizing:     "Father's  coming  soon." 

The  gray  pike  rippled  eastward  like  a  scroll 
And  vanished  in  the  summit  of  a  hill 

One  world-long  mile  away ;  around  me  played 
The  shifting  sunbeams — feather-like  still, 

Tiptoeing  from  each  ever-lengthening  shade. 

I  knew  that  when  they  crept  into  my  ken 

Above  the  hillbrink,  I  should  know  the  span — 
Dust-scuffling  bay,  head-tossing  gray ;  and  then 

The  strong  familiar  figure  of  the  man. 
I'd  know  him — know  him!     Leaping  with  their  joy 

My  swift  feet  from  my  cairn  would  take  me  down — 
A  care-free,  zephyr-hearted  country  boy, 

To  welcome  home  my  father  from  the  town. 
Ill 


A  SAMPLE  CASE  OF  HUMOR 

Once  on  a  time  he  went  away  again; 

Perhaps  the  sun  shone,  but  we  could  not  see. 
I  have  not  climbed  that  little  knoll  since  then, 

For  Father  is  not  coming  home  to  me. 
Somewhere  he  waits  upon  a  sun-kissed  hill 

And  softly  says :     "My  boy  is  coming  soon." 
He'll  know  me  from  afar— -I  know  he  will! — 

When,  world-tired,  I  trudge  home,  some  afternoon. 

Now  I  have  told  you  of  humor,  but  I  have 
not  laboriously  clung  to  the  laugh-coaxing 
emotions.  I  have  rambled  now  and  then  into 
other  and  healthful  emotional  fields,  and  you 
have  gone  with  me.  I  have  made  no  effort  to 
tell  you  a  set  of  "new  stories" — there  are  no 
such  animals.  I  have  clung  to  rudimentary 
anecdotes  that  contain  the  chief  principles  of 
humor.  If  I  have  given  to  humor  a  mental 
aspect  as  well  as  its  customary  emotional  one; 
if  I  have  in  the  least  degree  helped  you  to  find 
more  humor  about  you  and  to  create  humor  to 
while  away  lonely  moments;  and  if  I  have 
helped  cultivate  in  you  the  capacity  for  throw- 
ing off  sorrow  when  further  communion  with 
112 


HUMOR'S  PURPOSE 

it  would  make  you  not  only  unhappy  yourself 
but  render  miserable  your  associates — which  is 
black  injustice — I  am  happy.  And  you  will 
be  happier. 


113 


If  you  have  enjoyed  this  book  you 
would  also  be  pleased  with  Gil- 
lilan's  three  other  famous  books 
described  on  the  following  pages. 


BY  STRICKLAND  GILLILAN 


SUNSHINE  AND  AWKWARDNESS 

Strickland  Gillilan,  America's  most  popular  hu- 
morist, has  put  into  this  book  the  sparkling  wit  and 
humor  which  have  delighted  millions  of  people  who 
have  heard  him  lecture.  This  is  just  the  book  for  a 
gift  to  any  friend  and  the  book  you  would  want  for 
yourself. 

Packed  with  genuine  laughs. —  Washington  Star. 

It  is  clean,  kindly-tempered  fun  all  the  way  through. 
—  Christian  Advocate. 

It  contains  more  laughs  to  the  square  inch  than  you 
can  find  anywhere  else. —  The  Nautilus. 

A  book  that  will  chase  away  the  glooms  and  make 
everybody  happy. —  Los  Angeles  Express. 

Strickland  Gillilan  is  the  official  dispenser  of  sunshine 
to  the  American  People. —  The  Lookout. 

It  is  refreshing  to  get  hold  of  such  a  book.  Read  it 
and  enjoy  life  with  greater  zest. —  Omaha  Bee. 

This  book  is  a  veritable  godsend  and  its  publication  a 
real  service. —  The  Christian  Register. 

A  dollar  invested  for  this  book  might  save  a  hundred 
dollars  in  doctor's  bills. —  Journal  of  Education,  Boston. 

It  solves  the  problem  of  what  to  get  for  all  purchasers 
of  books.  If  you  are  thinking  of  buying  a  book  for 
yourself  or  anybody  else,  this  is  the  book  to  get. — 
Pittsburgh  Leader. 

Neatly  bound  in  cloth.     $1.00 
Forbes  &  Company,  Publishers,  Chicago 


BY  STRICKLAND  GILL1LAN 


INCLUDING  YOU  AND  ME 

This  delightful  book  contains  over  one  hundred 
joyous  poems  of  the  kind  that  everybody  likes  to 
read.  Gillilan  is  one  of  America's  leading  humorists 
and  his  verses  appeal  to  the  heart  with  their  quaint 
humor  and  cheerful,  hopeful  philosophy. 

The  sort  of  a  book  that  appeals  to  anybody. —  Buffalo 
Express. 

You  will  chase  away  many  blue  devils  if  you  keep  this 
book  near  you. —  Pittsburgh  Gazette  Times. 

All  cheerful  and  full  of  the  joy  of  living  and  the 
warmth  of  human  brotherhood. —  Duluth  Herald. 

Every  poem  is  a  gem  and  the  collection  a  sparkling 
galaxy.  No  one  can  read  the  book  without  feeling  more 
cheerful. —  Syracuse  Post-Standard. 

The  verses  appeal  to  the  heart  with  their  quaint  humor 
and  cheerful,  hopeful  philosophy.  They  express  the  sen- 
timents, the  hopes  and  aspirations  of  the  common  man. — 
Indianapolis  Star. 

Gillilan  takes  one  out  in  the  big  prairie  of  humor, 
where  the  sun  shines,  the  blue  sky  blesses  and  the  soft, 
pure  air  fondles  the  soul.  He  brings  delight  and  hope 
+o  the  tired  and  perplexed. —  Ohio  State  Journal. 

He  has  a  big-hearted,  sympathetic  attitude  towards 
life.  With  the  laughter  and  the  philosophy  are  mingled 
choice  bits  of  sentiment  —  beauty,  kindness,  charity,  love 
—  that  reveal  a  fine,  wholesome  spirit. —  Talent. 

Handsomely  bound  in  cloth.     $1.00 
Forbes  &  Company,  Publishers,  Chicago 


BY  STRICKLAND  GILLILAN 


INCLUDING  FINNIGIN 

A  book  containing  eighty  poems  by  the  popular 
author  of  this  volume.  It  includes  "Finnigin  to 
Flannigan,"  "The  Cry  of  the  Alien,"  "Me  an'  Pap 
an'  Mother,"  and  other  famous  poems.  There  is 
something  to  hold  the  thought  or  touch  the  heart  on 
every  page  while  the  verses  swing  between  laughter 
and  tears. 

It  is  just  as  funny  as  any  verses  written. —  Chicago 
Daily  News. 

Worth  reading  over  and  over.  Humanity  held  up  to 
nature.- — Boston  Globe. 

A  book  that  will  draw  a  smile  from  every  reader  and 
tears  from  most. —  The  Christian  Advocate. 

Gillilan  makes  folks  laugh  the  good  wholesome  laughs 
that  are  good  for  all  ailments. —  Wheeling  Register. 

This  book  is  full  of  laughter,  tears,  intense  sympa- 
thy, tenderness  and  commonsense. —  Christian  Endeavor 
World. 

There  is  occasion  for  a  smile,  a  tear  or  a  big  laugh 
on  every  page,  according  to  how  you  happen  to  feel. — 
New  York  Press. 

Gillilan  is  one  of  nature's  biggest  inventions.  He  is 
a  device  for  the  extraction  of  laughter  from  everyday 
life.  He  is  a  sure  cure  for  discouraged  minds. —  George 
Fitch. 


Attractive  cover.     Cloth.     $1.00 
Forbes  &  Company,  Publishers,  Chicago 


YB  73324 


M183576 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


